Canary Island Protests: TUI's CEO Weighs In

29.04.2024 - 14:33 / skift.com / Travel Experiences / Sebastian Ebel / Jesse ChaseLubitz

TUI CEO Sebastian Ebel said recent protests in the Canary Islands are not about tourism, but rather about a shortage of housing and lack of regulation of online platforms like Airbnb. 

The protests started last week with tens of thousands taking to the streets in Tenerife. They are calling for the government to limit tourist arrivals to ease pressure on the environment, infrastructure and housing supply. They say tourism is forcing them into unsafe and unstable working conditions and pricing them out of their homes. 

Protests have grown in severity, with one group going on an indefinite hunger strike. Protestors brought signs saying “This is not tourism, it’s colonization!” and “The Canary Islands are not up for sale!” 

Ebel told German travel news source, FVW, that unregulated online booking platforms are driving up housing prices and are to blame, rather than tourism as a whole. “These are not protests against tourism,” he said. “They are protesting in favour of tourism that is socially responsible and economically successful for the local people.”

“The good image of tourism must not be damaged by the kind of excesses that have apparently developed,” he adds. “The Canary Islands have been one of our customers’ favourite holiday destinations for years,” he said.

TUI has at least 276 offerings in the Canary Islands.

Ebel makes a distinction between organized tourism, which includes package holidays, and involves guests going to hotels “where many local people work.” That is opposed to individual trips, which include people booking local apartments. This kind of tourism causes more and more of the housing stock to be offered up for holiday accommodation, he says.

“This not only reduces the supply, but also drives up the prices of available flats…compare this to a hotel being built: It is not without authorization. The size and location are approved by the administration. Hotels provide jobs and development opportunities for local people for years to come.”

However, these protests were triggered by a vote in Spain’s parliament not to stop the construction of a hotel and a resort that markets itself as an eco-resort, Cuna del Alma. 

Since the 1980s, the Islands’ tourism model has been to attract as many tourists as possible. But hotel owners and investors only have to pay 4% tax and could send profits back to their home country, which means that very little of the income generated would trickle back into the population. The model has not changed since.

While a big part of the protests were about stopping the rise in short-term holiday rentals and hotel building that drive up housing costs for locals, it’s far from the only area where activists want change.

Discontent has been growing for years.