The Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jessica de León, warned this Tuesday that the CO2 emission rights that airlines must pay as of January 1, 2024 with the new European Union regulation will reduce the islands by one million tourists.
De León made these statements at the III Turespaña Convention held in San Sebastián, a city in which the counselor assured that "sustainability cannot be addressed from a standard regulation because the Canary Islands is an ultra-peripheral region", as reported by her department in a statement.
The counselor stressed that "the emission rights that come into force on January 1, 2024 represent one million fewer tourists and 40,000 jobs for the Canary Islands", understanding that it is "a tax designed for a continental territory, with another mobility system between regions that is not possible to contemplate in the islands because we will always have a carbon footprint to compensate for the tourist who arrives at the destination".
De León also referred to the strategy presented by the president of Paradores, Pedro Saura, at the round table, where he highlighted the use of the train or the electric car to reach the tourist paradors in a sustainable way, issues in which, according to the counselor, "the Canary Islands is exempt".
The Canary Islands represents 30% of Spain's tourist GDP
In this sense, she has called for a change in the legislation model that includes the archipelago, which "represents 30% of the national tourist gross domestic product (GDP)".
The counselor has defended that "tourism has to be a State policy because it remains as a driver of the primary sector, digitization, talent acquisition and training".
Likewise, she has demanded that the Canary Islands be "part of all the public policies that are launched" and not be relegated to "a residual discourse focused on promotion and attracting the final customer".
De León has also referred to the efforts carried out by the Ministry of Tourism and Employment, through the public company Turismo de Islas Canarias, to connect the islands as a destination directly with visitors through the digitization of the entire tourist experience.
She has presented the work of the Canary Islands Destination Customer Management Platform, which shares data and actions with the private sector and the island and local tourism management and promotion entities.
"With six million unique users and more than 2 billion annual advertising impacts, it is considered one of the best tourism platforms nationwide", said the counselor, who considered public-private collaboration "key to promoting a single, powerful and shared digital presence as a destination and not compete among ourselves".