Last year there were demonstrations against mass tourism in numerous tourist destinations around the world, from Amsterdam to the Canary Islands, passing through Mallorca and many other points around the globe.
The rebound effect after the Covid 19 pandemic has caused tourist numbers to grow more than ever before in recent history, and the local population of the most visited places in the world is wondering what the benefit is of continuing to grow in quantitative terms.
The unease of the resident population has led to legislative changes in numerous parts of the globe, but the measures take time to produce results and conflicting economic interests continue to exist.
A worried island
Lanzarote is a paradigmatic case. After almost two years of economic collapse due to the pandemic, the growth of international tourism once the limits on mobility ceased is endangering the island's sustainability.
Last year, Lanzarote received 3.4 million tourists, 300,000 more than the previous year and more than ever before in its history.
With this, the load capacity of the island's infrastructure and public services, as well as the preservation of Lanzarote's natural spaces, have been severely strained.
Lanzarote is the most worried island in the Canary Islands about the environmental impact of tourism, seven out of ten conejeros believe that the current volume of tourism causes irreparable damage to ecosystems.
And not only the environment. 63.9% of Lanzarote residents think that tourism collapses health services, and 79.4% believe that tourism causes housing prices to rise.
Containment measures in the world, Spain and Lanzarote
Among the measures promoted internationally, the city of Amsterdam decided last year that a hotel can only open when another closes thanks to a popular initiative of 30,000 residents.
Meanwhile, in Copenhagen launched a plan to give away tickets to museums, kayak rides or ice cream to the most “sustainable” tourists.
Meanwhile, Madeira has started charging since January for hiking routes and Venice has just doubled the price of its entrance to 10 euros.
Without leaving Italy, the government of the city of Rome is considering charging to enter the Trevi Fountain and in Pompeii the limitation of 20,000 people per day has already been implemented.
Also in Spain there have been numerous legislative changes, especially with regard to limiting tourist apartments, holiday homes around here, but also with barriers to the construction of more hotels. For example, the Valencian community enacted a law so that they cannot be built less than 200 meters from the coast.
Lanzarote is also taking action on the matter. The Society for the External Promotion of the island (SPEL) is about to hire a communication campaign worth one million euros to raise tourist awareness of the fragility of the island.
The Cabildo has also hired informants to warn visitors about the "values, vulnerability and peculiarities" of Lanzarote's natural landscapes.
Conflicting interests, or not so much
However, 2024 continued to give headlines such as: Airlines schedule 400,000 more seats for Lanzarote this winter compared to last year or Historical maximum in the port of Arrecife: 500,000 cruise passengers between January and November.
There are numerous conflicting economic interests, although business owners in the tourism sector are increasingly aware that destinations must be protected from overcrowding in order to continue obtaining benefits.
The group that brings together the main tourism companies in Spain, Exceltur, launched a manifesto in 2024 for a "socially responsible tourism".
Prominent hoteliers such as Antonio Catalán have also pointed out that Lanzarote must be preserved from excess supply. A conclusion shared by the main speakers of the latest edition of the Global South Forum of Lanzarote.
The dilemma of the tourist tax
Introducing a tourist tax to cover the wear and tear of infrastructure and public services caused by tourism is one of the most proposed measures worldwide. Numerous European cities charge visitors a daily fee through tourist accommodations to compensate for their impact.
Outside of Europe, tourist taxes are also expanding and increasing in price. In New Zealand it already reaches 55 euros and in Galapagos it has just doubled to 200 dollars.
Although in reality you don't have to go that far. Autonomous communities such as the Balearic Islands have implemented it. But what is the money raised spent on?
Francina Armengol, former Balearic president, explained during a visit to Lanzarote that the money raised with the Balearic tourist tax is used to purify water, restore historical heritage, maintain natural parks and protect the sea. Over time, the Balearic tourist tax has also been used to build officially protected housing and to fund pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholarships.
Instead of a tourist tax, the Government of the Canary Islands prefers that tourists pay to visit specific places, although that strategy is more than surpassed in Lanzarote, which has been charging for decades to enter the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism. Precisely the CACTs managed to reduce the influx of tourists by 15% thanks to the price increase that was introduced last year.
Do the measures work?
The short answer is that they are slow and take many years. If there is a city in Spain at the forefront of tourism limits, it is Barcelona. In 2012 it introduced its first tourist tax, the amount of which increased this year, and in 2015 it began to restrict tourist apartments for two years after limiting the construction of new hotels.
In addition, it invested more than 44 million euros in a novel management plan for Areas of Great Affluence (EGA) and even managed to get Google to remove a massified public bus route from its mobility map.
Despite the measures mentioned, the city continued to break tourist records every year and only in the last quarter of last year has seen a slight decrease in the number of visitors, 0.7% less between October and December compared to the previous year.
