The Minister of Budgets and Finance of the Government of the Canary Islands, Matilde Asián, defended this Friday that the possibility of applying a tax for tourist overnight stays should be studied if a formula is found to exclude Canary Islands residents, although she does not believe it exists.
Asián has raised the possibility of finding that formula as a "challenge" to the PSOE deputy Manuel Hernández Cerezo, who has demanded in a parliamentary committee that this tax, known as "tourist tax", be applied in the archipelago as one of the measures for the redistribution of wealth generated by tourism.
"But it is not possible" that if there were such a tax, it would not be applied to Canary Islands residents, Asián reflected, for whom it would be "very unfair" for them to have to pay it.
In any case, the Minister has referred to what was said in this regard by the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, who opposes the tourist tax and speaks of taxing tourism more with the IGIC in any case, a collection that benefits the regional, island and local administrations.
Matilde Asián has acknowledged that GDP in Spain is growing more than in other European countries and in the Canary Islands more than in the rest of the country, all thanks to tourism, although this growth "is not perceived by citizens in the increase of their well-being."
For the Minister, it is legitimate to try to better distribute the wealth of tourism and the best formula is by raising wages, so she is confident that an agreement will be reached in the sector in Santa Cruz de Tenerife as has already happened in Las Palmas.
In the Minister's opinion, another way to distribute the benefits of tourism is to charge fees for access to natural spaces, so she has encouraged the councils and town halls to implement it, as has already been done in some places.
The socialist Manuel Hernández Cerezo has reproached the Government for not taking into account any of its proposals to socially distribute the benefits of tourism, such as this tourist tax, as well as ignoring the demands of the demonstrations of May 18 to improve living conditions or the strike of tourism workers in Tenerife.
"The response to all this has been inaction, or in any case, action for the usual suspects," Hernández Cerezo has criticized.
He reproached the Minister for not having done anything to ensure that the wealth of the tourism sector benefits the people and assured that the fees for access to natural spaces revert to the improvement of those spaces, not to the living conditions of the people.
