Once again, reality surpassed fiction in a story called COVID19, which has plunged Lanzarote into an almost complete tourism standstill. Even though the number of positive cases on our island is much lower than in other places, this pandemic teaches us what globalization is: what happens there affects us here. That is the reality, to the misfortune of many workers, business owners, and the island's economy.
In this context, numerous articles and opinions these days talk about diversifying our economic base, about the opportunity to rethink the immediate future, or about the fragility of the tourism model. Good intentions that follow one another, as in any turbulent period, as happened between 2008-2012 with the financial crisis that saw Lehman Brothers fall and the economy of many families. Now, with the new stage of uncertainty, a new reset is preached, which I think is good, as long as we don't excessively flog ourselves because, with our mistakes, we have done many things well during the last decades.
This is reflected in the latest tourism survey published by the Data Center of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, measuring tourist satisfaction in the case of Lanzarote at 8.85, the highest figure in all of the Canary Islands with an average of 8.7. Tourists give us a grade close to outstanding, which is not easy, but we must aspire to excellence, to the honors of the one that will continue to be our engine and main source of income: tourism.
Because betting on other economic sectors, on diversification, is necessary, who would give that up? But from the realism of knowing that we are a first-rate tourist destination that meets natural, logistical conditions and unbeatable know-how to continue being so.
And it is not easy to be in the top ten. Attending with quality, safety, and care to the three million visitors we had in recent years has extraordinary merit. However, let's not fall into complacency either, because between it and pessimism lies the term that will allow us to recognize the successes, many, and take advantage of the numerous opportunities we continue to have.
Even more so when circumstances force us to surpass ourselves, to do things, not just well, but with excellence. As we did at other times in our history. Back in the sixties, with the tandem César - José Ramírez, Pepín, and the commitment of Antonio Álvarez, Luis Morales, Jesús Soto... actors of our most beloved work, Lanzarote, and that the documentary Las manos, by filmmaker Miguel Morales, has captured so well, confirming that collective commitment is as essential as individual leadership.
They, along with the Rijo surname and water desalination, changed our history from an action of "superior quality or goodness" that made what was done "worthy of singular appreciation and esteem." For which they took care of even the smallest details and put the best of each one at the service of the island.
Or as in the 90s, with the determined commitment to internalize that our territory is finite, and that, on many occasions, less is more. Not to abuse our natural environment, to protect it, to put limits on urban growth and a silver bridge to the much talent we have. Then, too, we went through excellence, which made us earn the admiration of many in a field that is always complex such as planning, under the incipient leadership of Pérez Parrilla, Fernando Prats, and César Manrique himself, still among us until the fateful September 25, 1992.
Now, too, it is necessary, with other actors, at another time, but with the obligation not to forget that nothing is forever and that competitors are lurking in turbulent times. You only have to see one of Callejeros Viajeros or go to one of those thematic channels to verify that the risk is real and make excellence our brand.
It is a path that will take time, because neither Rome was built in a day, nor Lanzarote, as Juan Marrero Portugués reminds us in his work César Manrique y Pepín Ramírez, dos líderes canarios en su contexto histórico when talking about the Tourist Centers: the creation process was slow and, in no case, was it "the occurrence of a day." But we have a long way to go and experience so that ex-cel-lence reaches all corners of the island, and especially Arrecife, because no space brings together so many opportunities for the capital itself and the island as the port and its non-negotiable transition to urban excellence. It already happened like this in the past, because "initially the development of Lanzarote was linked to the development of Arrecife, on which it had always depended," as Marrero Portugués himself points out.
And I look to the past yes, but to take note of what was done well. Let's flee from an erroneous nostalgia that can plunge us into something "that is called solitude" or melancholy, which Joaquín Sabina so well described, and that does not help to face the present and future challenges, but often immobilizes us thinking that we may be betraying certain postulates or dogmas of faith, not always in force. Let all the talent and love for this land flow, which has given us so much, and Lanzarote and excellence will be the same thing again.
Marcos Bergaz
