The massive citizen mobilization of last April 20 once again introduced the dysfunctions of the tourism model and its impact on society as a whole into the political and media agenda. Proposing some alternatives to reorient it towards maximum sustainability and, likewise, and no less relevant, maximum social profitability. Five months after 20A, it is confirmed that the Canary Islands Government of CC and PP did not listen to its demands and continues to look the other way and insist on its fully developmental proposal, as the Minister of Tourism stated this week in Parliament, rejecting the tourist tax and the moratorium on vacation rentals.
With the obligatory parenthesis that the confinement due to the Covid 19 pandemic meant, tourism has not stopped growing in the world in recent decades, driven by air travel by low-cost companies and the proliferation of vacation homes, with prices lower than classic hotels. This produces an impact beyond the classic tourist areas, gentrifying cities, making access to housing difficult in many neighborhoods and even ending their traditional commerce.
Of course, tourism generates very important economic activity and numerous jobs in our land. And that its impact is positively transferred to other sectors, such as commerce or the primary sector; and it will certainly continue to be a determining sector of our economy in the future. And, likewise, that in this 21st century there has been an increase in the quality of the offer and a greater diversification of it (sports, cultural...).
But its significant dysfunctions that generate serious impacts should not and cannot be ignored: on access to housing, local commerce, infrastructure, public services, transportation and mobility, electricity and water production, waste treatment... And in employment with low wages and with manifestly improvable working conditions. As well as its notable influence on unsustainable demographic growth.
Moratorium and guidelines
It is not the first time that Canarian society has opened a debate on tourism. It already happened at the beginning of this 21st century, with broad social participation (parties, unions, business organizations, island councils and town halls, universities, environmental groups, professional associations...) and promoting from the Government Law 6/2001 of urgent measures in Matters of Territorial Planning and Tourism of the Canary Islands, better known as a moratorium. A law that allowed the declassification of 400,000 tourist beds, including the 20,000 in Veneguera, whose protection was definitively shielded in Law 6/2003 declaring its ravine as a protected natural space.
A moratorium that was perfectly articulated in its legal aspects, so it did not cost a single euro to the Canarian public coffers: all the lawsuits filed by different companies were ruled in the courts favorably to the Government of the Canary Islands.
That process culminated with the unanimous approval by the Parliament of the Canary Islands of the tourism planning guidelines in April 2003. These proposed not to occupy more territory, betting on the renovation of the obsolete accommodation plant; update and improve tourist cities; diversify and qualify the offer; or the permanent training of personnel. Including, likewise, limitations during a three-year period to tourist growth in the tourist islands. They largely coincide with many of the proposals that are being made today. Unfortunately, the guidelines were repealed, de facto, by subsequent governments. This, without a doubt, has contributed to the fact that some problems of the past are repeated today and the debate is reopened.
Sustainable Tourism Agreement
Two decades later -with 16 million annual visitors and a population growth of more than 560,000 people so far this century- reflection and decision-making are necessary again. To strengthen our main economic sector. To make it an ally of a sustainable archipelago model within the framework of a developed, balanced society with high levels of equity. To ensure that it is perceived, today and tomorrow, as a solution and not as a problem by the vast majority of Canarian society.
From Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc) we have proposed reaching a great Canarian Agreement for Sustainable Tourism, which defines the guidelines for the development of the sector in the coming decades. We believe it is essential to make decisions for its sustainability supported by the most rigorous prior analysis and that have the greatest possible social consensus. With the commitment of the Canarian Executive, the parliamentary groups, the island and local corporations, the businessmen and unions and the environmental groups, as well as the Canarian universities.
An Agreement that should address numerous issues. Among them, the rehabilitation of tourist cities and the modernization and renovation of the accommodation plant. With greater training for its workers and better working and salary conditions. As well as the decarbonization and digitization of the sector.
Objectives to which an ecotax of a specific nature could contribute, paid by non-residents for their stay in tourist accommodation and whose collection is invested in the rehabilitation of public infrastructures and the preservation of natural resources. It is not true, as stated by the Minister of Economy and the Minister of Tourism, both from the PP, that the tax on tourist stays cannot have a specific destination. The laws approved in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands deny this statement. The Balearic law says verbatim in its article 2.1: "The collection of this tax has a specific nature and is fully allocated to the fund to promote sustainable tourism..."
But we are aware that a tax, as happens in other places, does not limit the number of visitors; Barcelona is a clear example of this. We also value an insularized moratorium in the sector that, necessarily, should take into account the situation and the carrying capacity of each territory. The circumstances of La Palma are not the same as those of Fuerteventura or Lanzarote.
Likewise, we understand that it is necessary to legislate adequately on vacation rentals, which already account for more than a third of the accommodation offer. Differentiating between small and large owners, regulating the activity and preventing residential areas from becoming touristy. For this, we demanded at the time a moratorium in this area so that the new rule could be effective; the Canarian Government was frontally opposed, with disastrous results. Intervening, also, on the purchase of homes by foreigners not rooted in the Islands, which is promoting speculation.
Limits to growth
It is an essential debate that, mistakenly, the Canarian Government considers closed. It refuses the tourist tax -which is implemented in destinations such as Amsterdam, Rome or Paris; and, in the Spanish State, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands-. And it also rejected the request of NC-bc to approve a moratorium on vacation rentals while the new law was being drafted. We raised it in April and in June the groups that support the Executive of the two rights rejected it in the Parliament of the Canary Islands. As a result of their refusal, the registration of vacation homes has multiplied exponentially in recent months.
The Canarian Government also refuses to contain growth. On the contrary, it stimulates the generation of new facilities, authorizes more than 15,000 new tourist beds and intends to continue breaking records in the number of visitors. Although this does not modify either our levels of poverty or continue to be at the tail of nationalities and regions in relation to salaries.
Five months after the 20A demonstrations, little or nothing has changed. Although Clavijo then assured that he would take note of the claims, he must have misplaced them and completely forgotten them. His snub to 20A is absolute. The Government of the two rights insists on reproducing a developmental model that impacts on infrastructure and public services, on energy and water consumption, on water purification and waste treatment, as well as on traffic jams on the roads and on the growing difficulties in accessing housing. Its inability to listen to what environmental movements, experts from Canarian universities, trade union organizations or opposition parties have been raising is very negative for the present and for the future of the Canary Islands.
