Every time I hear or read that the Government of the Canary Islands intends to further tax the tourism sector, I start to tremble. And if I were you, I would too. Above all, because the ecotax by itself does not have to mean something bad, but if we combine it with two undeniable realities of our environment, we have a cocktail that can cause a social and economic disaster in the Canary Islands. These realities are the loss of competitiveness in favor of other destinations and the high poverty already present in our land.
First of all, it must be made clear that it is a lie that the ecotax is not included in the "flower pact". Specifically, it appears on page 9 of the document signed between all the forces, and it says: "To finance these necessary investments, the possible implementation of a tax on tourist stays will be studied, which will be earmarked." By investments, it refers to the rehabilitation of infrastructures in tourist areas, and the idea of rehabilitating these areas is not bad per se. The problem lies in the fact that, until now, the Government of the Canary Islands has been unable to execute the approved budget items given its inefficiency and malpractice in management. So much so that, between 2017 and 2018, 800 million euros were not executed (see here). So, what is the point of an ecotax if you are not able to execute what is planned? Why squeeze the economic engine of the islands even more if we also know that Canary Islands tourism is losing competitiveness? (see here)
The ecotax would mean an increase in cost for tourism that perhaps, and only perhaps, the tourist is not willing to pay, and this has consequences. For example, in the Balearic Islands, tour operators and hoteliers have warned that the decrease in tourists is influenced by the application of the ecotax given that "both the German and the British are very price-sensitive markets" (see here ). Furthermore, as I wrote almost a year ago, countries like Egypt, Turkey, or Tunisia have returned to the tourism market being more competitive than the Canary Islands given the reduced costs to travel there and their high offer, both cultural and leisure (see here). It should also be mentioned that flights to the Canary Islands have become more expensive after the attacks suffered by these countries. These attacks caused tourism to go to safer areas, such as the Canary Islands, raising the price of tickets due to demand. But when this variable disappeared, tourists and tour operators have reduced costs and increased profits by reopening routes to exotic countries such as Egypt or Turkey. Meanwhile, traveling to the Canary Islands is still more expensive than going from Madrid to New York (see here)
And what does this have to do with the high poverty in the Canary Islands? Well, according to data from the latest survey on Living Conditions of the INE, for the year 2018, 36.4% of the population residing in the Canary Islands was at risk of poverty or social exclusion. That is, they did not have enough income to get ahead. Furthermore, the unemployment rate in the Canary Islands is 21.03% for the first quarter of 2019. Therefore, if an ecotax is applied to an economic model that suffers from a lack of competitiveness and that is unable to renew itself due to the disastrous management of the (outgoing) Government of the Canary Islands, what may happen is that tourism decreases and, therefore, jobs are reduced, thus increasing the unemployment rate. This has an even greater impact on the risk of poverty for the Canarians who will see how their only source of income diminishes due to the inability of politicians to implement public policies that do not destroy their livelihood.
In short, what the Government of the Canary Islands should do is stop plundering tourism with an ecotax that has nothing more than an unjustified collection purpose, and spend the available economic resources on improving the quality of tourism, the infrastructure of the islands to improve the quality of the tourist offer and improve the labor quality of the Canarians. These improvements will have a more direct impact on the quality of life of the Canarians than "robbing" the tourism that comes to us. Tourism that must be protected given the competition that looms over the market.
There are resources and there are needs. There is no need to look for more resources to generate more needs.
Alejandro Pérez O'pray, Political Science and Administration from the UNED.