Luis Gortázar Díaz-Llanoz, director of Gaia Consultores Insulares, appeared before the Mixed Commission on Insularity of the Congress of Deputies, at the request of María Dolores Corujo, socialist spokesperson in said commission of Congress and promoter of the carrying capacity study and declaration of Lanzarote as a "touristically saturated island under her Presidency of the Cabildo".
During his speech, Gortázar made a forceful diagnosis of the tourism situation in the Canary Islands: "The tourist carrying capacity in the Canary Islands is clearly exceeded," he emphasized. The director of Gaia explained that "the tourist carrying capacity is a technical concept that evaluates the potential of a territory to offer quality to the visitor, maintain a good standard of living for the local population and limit the environmental impact." "Without adequate planning, tourism ceases to be sustainable for both businesses and the local society, and negatively affects the experience of the tourists themselves," he said.
Vacation rentals: "A phenomenon that has distorted the tourist and urban market"
The director of Gaia Consultores also warned about the impact of vacation rentals on the islands, describing how this has "completely distorted the tourist and urban market." In his words, "what was initially presented as an opportunity within the collaborative economy has become another economic activity like the hotel and extra-hotel industry, overflowing planning capacities and generating serious problems of coexistence, infrastructure and mobility."
Gortázar stressed that "this phenomenon has taken tourists out of traditional areas, increasing pressure on residential and natural environments": "The tourist who stays in vacation rentals needs a vehicle, travels enormous distances, wants to see everything, and this has multiplied the environmental and social impacts."
Gortázar indicated that "there are disturbing signs" on all the islands. The appearing party listed a series of concrete examples that reflect the problems associated with tourist saturation: "the endless queues to enter the Timanfaya National Park, in Gran Canaria the Cabildo is forced to close access to Roque Nublo, the main attraction of the summit, and to implement a shuttle system due to the massive pressure of visitors, in Tenerife access restrictions are established to the Teide due to recurring problems with tourists without adequate equipment. In Ajuy, an enclave that 20 years ago received only a few visitors a day, now supports hundreds of daily tourists without any regulation. These are just some examples of how we are opening the seams of the system," Gortázar warned.
Tourist carrying capacity: an essential concept
María Dolores Corujo, insular secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote, deputy in Congress and socialist spokesperson in the commission, congratulated the appearing party for "the clarity of his presentation" and stressed that "the platform economy, in particular vacation rentals, is expelling families and workers from their neighborhoods due to the disproportionate increase in rent." In addition, she pointed out that the Canary Islands is the autonomous community with the highest ratio of vacation rentals, surpassed only by the Balearic Islands, and stressed that "in Lanzarote there is 1 tourist place for every two residents."
Corujo reiterated "the urgency of implementing measures such as the moratorium on tourist beds, the regulation of the price of vacation rentals, the application of the Housing Law of the Government of Spain and the implementation of an ecotax, following the successful model of the Balearic Islands and Catalonia." "We must diagnose this situation rigorously and implement corrective measures to guarantee a sustainable tourism model in the Canary Islands," she concluded.
In addition, she stressed that "in the Canary Islands there is one of the highest ratios of vacation rentals in the country, with special concern for Lanzarote, where there are already 22 vacation rental places per 100 inhabitants." "In Lanzarote, if we count all the tourist places, there is one tourist place for every two inhabitants. This clashes head-on with the poverty data of the Arope report, which places the Canary Islands as one of the poorest regions of the State. It is unsustainable," she added.
