The tourist takeoff of Lanzarote began to be drawn on the coast of Tías on onion paper plans in the early sixties, previously land acquisitions were made in the area by foreign agents and a small local capital knowledgeable of owners and boundaries, they were productive fallow lands dedicated to tomatoes that reached the sea limits. From the plans, the execution of the urbanization that contemplates a hotel plot begins. Juan Viera's Las Playas picnic area becomes the epicenter and observatory for the promoters: Virgilio Suárez, Vicente Calderón and Machado until it ends up being swallowed along with the houses on the front line of Playa Chica.
The hotel's construction, designed by the Las Palmas architect Manuel Roca Suárez, began in 1962. Workers were requested from all over the island, mostly coming from Tías, San Bartolomé and Tinajo, who took the step to work in construction, leaving agricultural work for the weekend. Daily, buses full of workers headed to work via the Tinguatón route from Tinajo and, via the Barranco Negro route, those from San Bartolomé. The small shops in the villages, especially those in La Tiñosa, played a fundamental role in their sustenance. Specialized workers from Las Palmas and Tenerife were brought in for formwork, plumbing, and other tasks.
After the completion of the Los Fariones hotel in 1966, it opened to tourism with 77 rooms. It would be the first on the island and provided employment for many workers from all over Lanzarote. For the training of all sectors of the new employment catalog, middle managers were brought from Gran Canaria. The inauguration ceremony was a solemn event, with more than six hundred guests. The delegation from outside was headed by the undersecretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Mr. Rodríguez Acosta; the deputy director general of State Heritage, Mr. Sancho; Civil Governor, Mr. Fernández Galar; president of the Mancomunidad de Cabildos, Mr. Díaz Bertrana. All were received by local civil, military, and religious authorities. President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Mr. Ramírez Cerdá; mayor of Tías, Mr. Antonio Díaz Bermúdez, and the parish priest of Arrecife, who blessed the facilities (…) The chronicle by Guillermo Topham adds that Mr. Rodríguez Acosta gave an emotional speech and that Virgilio Suárez ended his speech by reciting the Our Father.
After the interventions, a grand cocktail was served and several folk groups from the island, including San Antonio de Tías, played and danced in the gardens surrounding the hotel's pool, delighting the distinguished attendees.
The Los Fariones hotel functions like a large family. It served as a social club, for celebrations, end-of-year parties, and hosted an endless list of famous personalities who chose the island. The hotel served as a training school for great professionals to receive mass tourism from all nationalities. In these sixty years of operation, it has cultivated customer loyalty, perpetuating generations of families who have passed through this unique setting where the workers have been able to empathize to a high degree with the clients.
Analyzing the archives, the chronicles written by Guillermo Topham in his weekly ANTENA and his correspondence in ECO DE CANARIAS, with provincial circulation and a special supplement dated 27.10.1966, reveal substantial accounts: Cesar Manrique, upon returning to his island, gives us brilliant headlines: El Jameo del Agua will become the most beautiful nightclub in the world. Lanzarote is at a crucial moment to preserve its typical architecture. It is essential to aesthetically save the island.
Returning to the visit of the Undersecretary of Tourism, Topham's chronicle comments: from the airport, first thing in the morning, the entire entourage traveled to the port of Órzola to board the speedboat Virgen del Pino bound for La Graciosa. The purpose of the visit was to take possession, on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism, of the island of La Graciosa so that it would become the first Spanish island, officially subject to tourism promotion. The signing of the deed took place at a table set up on the promenade in the presence of the local mayor of La Graciosa, Mr. Jorge Toledo, the mayor of Haría, and the mayor of Teguise. The entourage finally enjoyed a barbecue of fresh sardines and lobsters at the local mayor's house, before returning to Lanzarote.
The legendary master and journalist Guillermo Topham continues to narrate the busy trip of the Undersecretary of Tourism. Upon returning from La Graciosa, they headed to the Los Fariones hotel where they attended an intimate lunch and rested in their rooms, prior to the inaugural ceremony.
The ceremonial act of inauguration of the Fariones described at the beginning having concluded, the entire entourage heads north of the island again, the culmination of the visit awaits them at Los Jameos del Agua. Upon arriving at the entrance of Jameo Chico from above, the spectacularity of the place, the jameo, the stone, the wood, the Jameo Chico, lights, music, the lake… , this man experiences stage fright before the discovered beauty and refrains from inaugurating this unique, exclusive, and paradigmatic setting. Rodriguez-Acosta comments that my presence here today is just a visit, because this marvel of exceptional quality deserves an extraordinary inauguration and emphasizes that it would be very convenient for the minister Mr. Fraga Iribarne to attend this inaugural act in person to give it an international character with the attendance also of high national and foreign personalities, press correspondents from all over the world, and the performance of a grand spectacle of great value. This has too much category, an act of substance and international resonance must be made. Around two in the morning, the entourage returns to the Fariones hotel to rest before leaving the island the next day first thing in the morning heading to Gran Canaria.
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