“Holiday homes have become a differentiated market niche and doing without them would mean giving up a certain type of tourist”, this is one of the conclusions of the report “An approach to the economic reality of Holiday Homes", presented this Tuesday by the Association of Economists of Las Palmas.
A different tourist who, according to the report, spends 48% of the total expenditure outside their place of accommodation, that is, on local transport, food (supermarkets and restaurants), leisure, purchase of goods and other tourist expenses. On the other hand, tourists who stay in hotels only spend 21.6% of their budget outside.
In addition to attracting a particular type of tourist, the report highlights that holiday homes are also the preferred option for many other clients such as digital nomads or film crews, among others, who would be harmed.
In previous reports, the Association of Economists had already warned that the Preliminary Draft Law on holiday homes harms small and medium-sized owners, which the current report puts at 91% of the total in Lanzarote.
Likewise, 70.6% of holiday homes in Lanzarote are located in its tourist municipalities, according to data from the Canary Islands Government from 2023.
The Doctor of Economic and Business Sciences, Rosa Rodríguez, also explained that “85.3% of the accommodation registered by the Canary Islands Government as holiday homes in Lanzarote, are apartments and villas and only 14.7% are holiday homes”.
In addition, the Association of Economists rejects that the Preliminary Draft Law prepared by the regional government can be based on the fact that holiday homes reduce residential housing, given that in the Canary Islands "there are more than 200,000 empty homes and some 30,000 new homes available, compared to 25,000 families demanding” public housing in 2023".
In this regard, the current report indicates that, in the Canary Islands as a whole, the majority of holiday homes (63.8%) are limited to 13 tourist municipalities and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Among them, 83.4% are located in tourist micro-destinations and not in residential areas.
The presentation ceremony took place in the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosa and was attended by the Dean of the Association of Economists of Las Palmas, Alcibiades Trancho Lemes; the director of the study, Rosa Rodríguez Díaz; the Minister of Finance and Contracting of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Jesús Tovar Pérez; and the president of the Chamber of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, José Valle Martínez.