We must begin the debate on the problem of vacation rentals from the vision and analysis of the tourism model we want for the Canary Islands because, let's not fool ourselves, the proliferation of vacation rentals is not an isolated phenomenon but a consequence of the breakdown of the traditional tourism market model that is evidently being generated worldwide.
The introduction of ICTs, information and communication technologies, is ushering in a new era in the conception of tourism models and the market. Therefore, I believe, from my modest opinion, that we cannot address the problem of vacation rentals under our old and anachronistic schemes of a tourism model that is becoming obsolete. We have to assume that tourism is experiencing and will experience a brutal change in the coming years and in the face of this reality, the Canary Islands has the obligation to adapt to this transformation.
As an example, in this new tourism era we are witnessing the emergence of the so-called "independent traveler" versus the traditional tour operator client. A new tourist, further enhanced by low-cost airlines, who in many cases demands a different type of accommodation than hotels. The enormous increase in vacation rentals in the Canary Islands is the result of a new tourism era that will force us to adapt to the new market.
As a regional deputy, I have been asking the same question to the Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands for two years: is the regional Executive going to end, is it going to eradicate the activity of vacation rentals on tourist land?. The answer is No.
Well, it is evident that if it is not going to be eradicated, we have to organize it and provide it with a rigorous and strict regulatory framework with the socio-economic reality and not patch it up, as has been done with Decree 113/2015.
This government cannot maintain the capricious, inefficient attitude, that absurd insistence on continuing to maintain the prohibition of vacation rentals on tourist land for a premise that falls under its own weight, and that is that the activity of vacation rentals will continue to develop on those lands and the Government will not be able to end it. Starting from this realistic premise, the government has no other option than to regulate and organize the activity.
We, therefore, have a serious problem in the Canary Islands. We have a government without direction, a government still disconcerted at this point, without planning or strategy regarding the future of our tourism model.
In the Canary Islands, we have traditionally implemented the hotel accommodation tourism model of "all inclusive"; a model that has brought wealth to the islands but, let's not fool ourselves, because the economic benefits of the accommodation sector in the islands were distributed among a few and most of those "few", in addition, were not of Canarian capital and in most cases pay taxes outside of Spain. It is a model very similar to that of tourist destinations in the Caribbean, Central America, South America, in which the benefits are for the large hoteliers while the population remains at very high levels of poverty and unemployment. The same occurs in the Canary Islands where poverty and unemployment rates are extraordinarily high, although it is true that we do not reach the levels of these tourist destinations thanks to the policies of the EU and Spain.
On the other hand, there is another tourism model that is the one we defend from the Popular Party, a model based on a sustainable tourism economy that generates benefits for all. Benefits for the large hoteliers, for the extra-hotel sector but also benefits for Canarian families, for restaurants, for shops and for the food sector in tourist areas. A model in which hotel accommodation predominates but complemented by the extra-hotel modality and vacation rentals.
Which of these two models do we want in the Canary Islands? The anachronistic "all inclusive" or the one that is complemented by vacation rentals and generates benefits for all? From the Popular Party we understand that it is necessary and urgent that we debate which is the tourism model we want for our Autonomous Community, but without losing sight of the fact that there are unalterable realities in which the Government cannot look the other way.
For more than three years we have been demanding that the Canarian Government address, with immediate effect, the modification of Decree 113/2015. Decree that, as we said, has only come to patch up the problem and greatly aggravate the situation.
We say yes to a tourism model that generates benefits for all Canarians, a model whose benefits remain among our Canarian people, a model where the different accommodation modalities are complemented, and above all a well-ordered and regulated model from the regulatory point of view where quality criteria are established.
Astrid Pérez, regional parliamentarian and president of the PP of Lanzarote