For too long, we in the Canary Islands have made a mistake that has been quite profitable for some: confusing tourism growth with prosperity.
More tourists. More beds. More hotels. More cruises. More records.
And every time the Canary Islands break one, the Coalición Canaria government seems ready to pop the champagne. The small inconvenience arises when one abandons the press release and goes out into the street: tourism wealth appears splendidly in the statistics, but it has an extraordinary ability to not reach the pockets of those of us who live here with the same intensity.
Then the question becomes inevitable: How much more does the Canary Islands have to grow for Canarians to notice that we are growing?
Román Rodríguez has once again proposed a tourism moratorium and recalled a precedent that quite effectively dismantles some catastrophic discourses: the moratorium at the beginning of this century managed to stop hundreds of thousands of planned beds.
The Canary Islands set limits. And it did not sink. El Teide remains in its place, the hotels are still open, and, miracles of modern economy, tourists continue to arrive.
From Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista, we have been advocating for a tourism moratorium adapted to the reality of each island, limits on accommodation growth, and a model that stops measuring economic success exclusively by counting heads at airport terminals.
And in Lanzarote, our deputy Yoné Caraballo has also clearly advocated for a moratorium on tourism growth. His approach is quite simple: Lanzarote needs to stop and breathe.
Because Lanzarote is not chewing gum. And neither are the Canary Islands.
We cannot stretch a limited territory indefinitely while the Coalición Canaria government continues to treat tourism growth practically as a religion: more visitors, more investment, more beds, and then we'll see where we put the consequences.
Of course, when someone proposes limits, the magic word immediately appears: Tourismphobia.
Are you talking about carrying capacity? Tourismphobia. Do you advocate for a moratorium? Tourismphobia. Do you ask how much an island can really withstand? Tourismphobia.
In the end, following certain CC arguments, questioning infinite growth in a finite territory must be some new form of extremism.
The truly irresponsible thing would be to continue exactly the same.
Coalición Canaria has been participating directly in the construction of the model we now have for too many years to present itself as a spectator surprised by its consequences.
They did not arrive yesterday. They have governed the Canary Islands for a good part of our recent autonomous history.
Therefore, when we talk about territorial pressure, economic dependence on tourism, or difficulties in translating generated wealth into sufficient collective well-being, CC cannot behave as if it had just found the problem under a rock.
It has had time. A lot of time.
And that is precisely the political difference that we from Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista want to propose.
We do not want to end tourism. We want to stop treating it as if it were a sacred cow that cannot be limited.
Tourism generates employment, wealth, and economic activity. Denying it would be absurd.
But precisely because it is a fundamental part of our economy, we must ask ourselves something that CC seems to avoid every time it celebrates another record: for whom is this model working?
Because if we receive more visitors, economic activity increases, and we continue to need to talk about poverty, precariousness, service saturation, and growing difficulties in building a life project on the islands, perhaps the problem is not how much money the Canary Islands generate.
Perhaps the problem is how it is distributed and what we are sacrificing to generate it.
The serious debate is not tourism yes or tourism no. It is what tourism, how much tourism, and for whose benefit.
And that is where Coalición Canaria's permanent record policy begins to look quite naked.
An island is not an Excel spreadsheet. It has territory, roads, water, energy, public services, and, a small detail that sometimes seems to be forgotten, people who live on it twelve months a year.
We are not extras hired to complete the scenery for anyone's vacation. That is why setting limits does not mean being against tourism. It means being in favor of the Canary Islands.
In Lanzarote, we should understand this especially well. César Manrique understood decades ago something that some still seem incapable of processing: protecting the territory was not confronting progress. It was preventing supposed progress from ending up destroying what made us different.
Yoné Caraballo has also vindicated the political courage that Enrique Pérez Parrilla had to set limits on growth through island planning.
That is politics. The easy thing is to continue authorizing growth and then boast about the figures. The difficult thing is to say: up to here.
Coalición Canaria can continue selling us every new tourism record as a victory. But there comes a time when records stop impressing.
Because the success of the Canary Islands should not be measured solely by how many millions of people come to visit us. It should also be measured by the quality of life of those who stay when the last plane takes off.
From Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista we defend a Canary Islands that manages tourism instead of allowing tourism to end up managing the Canary Islands.
A Canary Islands capable of setting limits. Capable of deciding how much each island can withstand. And capable, above all, of understanding that growing eternally in a limited territory is not economic policy. It is believing in miracles.
CC can continue counting tourists. We prefer to start counting how many Canarians truly benefit from the model they have been defending for so many years.
Because after so many records, if a part of our people continues to not recognize this supposed prosperity in their daily lives, perhaps Coalición Canaria should stop asking us why we protest.
And start asking themselves for whom the hell they have been governing for so many years.
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