Lanzarote has started strongly at the recent inauguration of the International Tourism Fair (Fitur) 2006. That is at least what has been commented on in the media, but that is also what our representatives ...
Lanzarote has started strongly at the recent inauguration of the International Tourism Fair (Fitur) 2006. That is at least what has been commented on in the media, but that is also what our public representatives sell us every year, every time a large delegation made up of members of the political, tourism and business class, gladly travel to the capital of Spain to spend a week trying to show the magnificent qualities of the Island.
Of course, just as with the diets of parliamentarians every time they travel to Tenerife, our commissioners are not usually lacking anything in this type of incursion of so-called tourism promotion. Whether it is the payment of travel expenses here, or the costs of lunches there, payment of overnight stays, transport, ... It would be good to know exactly how much the Lanzarote Island Council's Tourism Board invested in the previous edition of Fitur. It would be good so that the citizens of the Island could get a more or less clear idea of the amount that is spent every January from public funds through this important channel of tourism promotion, and thus analyze the benefits that, thanks to the business agreements that take place every year at the most important tourism fair, Lanzarote and its tourism ultimately take as a result of all this mess.
It is undeniable that all tour operators and tourism professionals meet at this type of fair, and that they are events that must be attended so that the destination is known, but doesn't it represent an excessive expense for the performance that is obtained? Wouldn't direct promotions through advertising inserted in national and international media be better?
Leisure that chokes
The president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, has assured that Lanzarote is in Fitur "to expand that offer of sun and beach" with which the Island clearly suffers from infrastructure for years. For years we have been hearing about promoting golf courses, theme parks, cultural offerings, water sports, leisure centers, ... but nothing. Uniting the complementary offer with the sustainable development of the Island seems like a real chimera, a case of wanting to but not being able to. While a sector that watches carefully pounces on whoever supposedly wants to get rich at the expense of these new initiatives, from other areas the cry is raised, legacy of César Manrique in hand, that Lanzarote will end up saturating and rotting touristically like the south of Gran Canaria. One for the other, and the house unswept.
We don't quite understand the demonization of golf courses. Saving water consumption, not so critical if seawater is purified, a golf course is still an area with many hectares of green, wooded and well-preserved land, where the block and concrete will not be able to continue their advance as long as the surrounding urbanizations are controlled and promoters with honey on their lips are forced to only make adjacent urban projects of low construction intensity.
The existence of that plus for the tourist is not only a guarantee to attract visitors with high purchasing power, but an opportunity for residents to improve their living environments.
In the first aspect, it is surprising that the British "knackers", who in their country have as much education and the same stratum as the canis in Spain, not only criticize the prices of our bars and restaurants, which they rarely visit during their "mono-stay" in the hotel, but also star in violent moves one night and another, often family, in which they end up involving even receptionists who, without eating or drinking, are forced to act as translators for the Guardia CIvil at so many in the morning.
Regarding the second aspect, the quality of the residents themselves would improve significantly with more options for leisure, as long as, and it must be emphasized, the values of Lanzarote are not endangered, and that the alternatives to sun and beach do not involve taking advantage of the personal interest of a few.
Then, guaranteeing the absence of real estate speculation, golf courses? ...let there be several and let them be better than those of other competing places.
Knowing the landscape, the character of its people and the customs of the Island, it is time to take a qualitative leap and abandon the era of postmodernism of tourist skepticism with which the Island was paralyzed after the boom decade, and in which Lanzarote, today, is still anchored despite going to Fitur every year and raising new hopes that, despite whoever it may concern, end up fading away as always with the statistics of occupation and tourist spending.
