Canary Islands recovers the pass in the perception of tourism but is at the tail of Spain

The valuation of tourism in the archipelago recovers slightly in 2026, standing at 5.2 points out of 10, according to the latest report from the Tourism Perception Barometer, prepared by the consultancy LLYC through the monitoring of digital and social media conversations.

LLYC (formerly known as Llorente & Cuenca) is a Spanish multinational consultancy listed on the stock exchange, specializing in strategic communication, digital marketing, and corporate reputation management.

In the digital conversation analyzed in the Canary Islands, only 17.5% of messages have a positive sentiment. The complete breakdown of conversation sentiment reveals a clear predominance of unease or discontent on digital platforms, with 59% of negative messages and 23.5% of neutral messages. 

The negative debate about tourism in the Canary Islands on social media is mainly concentrated on the rental crisis and the problem of housing access for residents, the saturation of public infrastructure —with frequent complaints about traffic jams and waste disposal— and the direct environmental impact on the archipelago's protected natural spaces. 

In the previous year's barometer, the Canary Islands obtained a score of 4.7 points out of 10, placing it in the negative range due to the strong digital and media impact of social protests against the tourism model. 

Although this figure allows the region to move out of the negative valuation territory accumulated in previous quarters, it places the Canary Islands in twelfth position in the ranking of autonomous communities, remaining below the Spanish average and showing the wear and tear of the citizen debate on the sustainability of the model.

Canary Islands versus the national average and other communities

Extremadura led the national ranking with 7.7 points, followed by Aragon and Asturias (both with 7.5 points), as well as Navarra and Murcia (7.2). In these areas, tourism is overwhelmingly perceived positively as a driver of local development and dynamism.

Among the communities with a clearly positive digital valuation of tourism —above six points— are Castilla-La Mancha (6.9), Cantabria (6.8), La Rioja (6.7), Castilla y León (6.6), and Galicia (6.2). 

Canary Islands (5.2) is located in the lower part of the list, sharing a barely passing grade with the Basque Country (5.1) and the Balearic Islands (5.0), the only ones with lower ratings than the Canary Islands. The score is also low in the Community of Madrid (5.6).

The communities with the worst perception of tourism are Catalonia (4.3), Andalusia, and the Valencian Community, both with 4.9.  

The LLYC report highlights that the slight improvement recorded in the archipelago has been driven by external promotion campaigns and the increase in air connectivity.