The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, and María Dolores Corujo, met on the morning of Monday, April 24 with the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosa and its president, José Valle.
During the meeting, Torres explained "the importance of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) in the search for flights with the lowest possible carbon footprint to and from the Canary Islands", as well as "the commitment to sustainable tourism", which was "the central theme of the meeting" on which the opinions of Corujo and Valle coincided.
In this sense, the need to "prioritize quality over numbers in tourism" has been brought up again. For the head of the executive, the best proof that sustainability is profitable "could be seen with the tourist closure of 2022 in the Canary Islands, when there were fewer visitors than in 2019, but more spending per tourist", he says. In his opinion, "that is the way because tourism is increasingly demanding with sustainability (German, Nordic, British...), and even more so on an island like Lanzarote, with its clear commitment to the environment", he says.
Corujo spoke along the same lines, for whom the coming years will be "decisive in the recovery of the island's leadership in innovation." "We were the first to adopt measures to contain growth and today we must be the first to define and put into practice 21st century tourism, respectful of the environment and capable of redistributing wealth," she clarifies.
“Socialist governments have focused on policies that guarantee the survival of companies and employment in the worst moments, now it is the companies' turn to make an effort and improve the conditions of their staff,” said Corujo.
President José Valle, highlighted "the orientation that a new generation of businessmen is taking for whom sustainability is important enough to put it as a priority objective and ahead of many other aspects." In fact, he has collected "the achievements that the new board of directors has achieved in less than a year with the launch of the thirteenth sustainability cluster of the World Economic Forum, the first in the world focused on tourism sustainability", he adds.
"It will serve as a laboratory to analyze emissions data from large tourism companies to reduce their carbon footprint"
During the meeting, he explained that "this experience will serve as a laboratory to analyze emissions data from large tourism companies in the Canary Islands to reduce their carbon footprint and later export the results to other tourist destinations", he makes clear.
He also believes that "the Chamber of Commerce's commitment to flights with clean fuels" (SAF) is very relevant. In this sense, he recalled that the Canary Islands has managed to be the only community in the EU with flights exempt from the carbon dioxide tax, as well as those from the Peninsula to the islands." In his opinion, the archipelago "can become a platform for these sustainable fuels" and already "there are companies that are committed to this", as is happening more and more "with electric cars because that is what society demands."
On this, the three agreed that the Canary Islands must be at the forefront and that Lanzarote can be a spearhead.
