The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) hosted the first edition of the Alba Sud Autumn School in Lanzarote from November 6th to 8th. These were days of reflection and critical analysis on the processes of touristification, comprising four roundtables with a total of twelve speakers and a field trip on the last day.
The first roundtable — featuring Raoul Bianchi, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Manchester; Dulce Cairós, Professor of Law at the University of La Laguna; and Ernest Cañada, PhD in Geography and coordinator of Alba Sud — addressed the causes of precarious labor in the tourism sector, focusing on deregulation and flexibilization processes, with different changes in protection models.
"Labor Law has responded to the neoliberal line" by shifting regulation from laws to agreements or contracts, Cairós pointed out. Bianchi spoke in the same vein, highlighting how the fragmentation of the tourism industry diminishes class consciousness for labor demands and acts as a catalyst for neoliberal policy. "Tourism is the easiest way to launder money," he stated.
The **consequences of the current tourism model** were also discussed. The clearest ones: **poverty and inequality**, despite corporate profits being higher than ever. It was warned that the focus remains on growth and more growth, while in tourist destinations, tourism affects the material living conditions of residents, which in turn fosters right-wing populism.In this regard, **touristification**, according to Cairós, has turned the welfare state into a fallacy, causing a generalized deterioration of living and working conditions, with unattractive wages, impossibility of work-life balance, difficult access to housing, and transportation problems. For Cañada, inequality is the most evident consequence of all, and in his opinion, it is most noticeable in the health of the working class, highly dependent on psychotropic drugs and anxiolytics. "Tourist activity generates broken bodies," he asserted.
The second panel, on **socio-ecological transition and tourism transformations**, was composed of Valerio del Rosario, director of the company El Cardón NaturExperience; Carla Izcara, researcher at Alba Sud, and Javier Tejera, director of Ecotouristing. The latter suggested that the transition must move towards a less predatory model that takes into account the biophysical limits of destinations: it is not about "few coming and spending a lot, but about spending better," and he warned that the "best climate in the world" can change, and with it, the rules of the game for tourism in the Canary Islands. For her part, Izcara pointed out that quality tourism does not generate less impact and considered that in the most touristified territories, workers must be put at the center and brave decisions must be made, such as halting hotel capacity and not expanding infrastructure further, to then plan a decrease.
Consequences of touristification
Alejandro Armas, a Geography professor at the University of La Laguna, and Irma Ferrer, a lawyer for the associations Transparencia Urbanística and Acción Cívica, spoke about the consequences of touristification, mainly regarding housing and public space, in the third panel of Alba Sud's autumn school. Regarding housing, Armas highlighted six aspects: the intensification of eviction processes, the increase in foreigners buying homes, the emergence of substandard housing, a large number of vacant homes (in the Canary Islands there are 211,000, the highest vacancy rate in Spain), non-existent public housing planning, and the proliferation of homes on the tourist rental market.
Armas advocated for decommodifying housing, incentivizing the entry of vacant homes into the market, and removing many others from the vacation rental market, as well as for an urgent vacation rental moratorium "because otherwise, other measures cannot be implemented." For his part, Ferrer warned about attempts to launder the tourism industry, which he described as "criminal" and accused of producing slaves. He pointed out the absolute lack of regulation by state institutions, recalled the attempt to regulate and contain the territory in Lanzarote, and the current situation with tourism sector workers living in poverty. "One cannot be in favor of the tourism industry as we know it," he concluded
Socio-ecological Conflicts Caused by Tourism
The latest roundtable discussion focused on socio-ecological conflicts caused by tourism, with participants including Gema Martínez Gayo, a Doctor of Sociology; Atteneri Rivero, a botanical biologist; Anne Striewe, general director of the Canarian Foundation; and philosopher Raül Valls.
For Rivero, the current conflicts are not isolated conflicts, but rather symptoms of a territorial model at its limit. He explained that conflicts are no longer seen solely as ecological, but also social, and this is a consequence of touristification. Striewe pointed out that the environmentalist discourse has been resonating with a segment of society that was previously indifferent, because touristification has exceeded all limits and mass tourism has reached all spaces. Martínez Gayo spoke, from a global perspective, about the slow and progressive effects that make society increasingly vulnerable to touristification, generating ecological and social problems of all kinds, with tourists competing for resources with residents.
Regarding the **barriers faced by social movements**, he pointed out "the difficulty in materializing concern about climate change into concrete measures in the tourism sector"; the limited effectiveness, for now, in decarbonization, the difficulty in introducing redistributive mechanisms; and a global political context that does not seem the most appropriate at the moment. Finally, he described social movements as necessary, since, in his view, they are a way to give visibility and provide responses, to disseminate and strengthen democracy, and to create "a more just, democratic, and sustainable society".