Lanzarote to get four new hotels – despite warning island is ‘oversaturated’ with tourists | World | News
The popular holiday hotspot of Lanzarote is set to get four new hotels, one of which will be the largest on the island, despite urgent warnings being issued that there are too many tourists visiting.
A new four-star apartment complex will be built in Costa Teguise, with 292 new holiday lets, one of the island’s major tourist resorts.
Two other hotels will be built in Arrecife, set to open in 2025. One of the buildings, a seven-storey boutique hotel, is already under construction and is based next to Parque Islas Canarias, near the Puerto Naos dock. It is said to be focused on ‘family tourism’.
The second is set for the Cuatro Esquinas area, a residential neighbourhood. It will built on the site of old houses, and according to the Town Hall, it is focused on ‘urban tourism’.
The third hotel now holds the title of biggest on the island, located in Playa Blanca. The hotel opened on December 1, 2023 and is managed by the Barceló Hotel Group.
The four-star Barceló Playa Blanca is situated on 100,000sqm plot in the town in the south of Lanzarote. Its grand opening was heralded as ‘a significant milestone in the island’s tourism panorama’.
The hotel has 720 rooms and 1,400 beds, and is ‘strategically’ located on the seafront, offering a space with a panoramic view of the nearby islands of Lobos and Fuerteventura.
The news of the four hotels comes just as urgent warnings have been issued over the state of overtourism on the island, as fears grow there are simply too many people visiting. As a result, just under a year ago, Lanzarote began the process of declaring itself a ‘saturated tourist area’.
In 2022, three million visitors travelled to the island for their holidays, far outstripping the 155,800-strong local population.
The dire situation on the island has lead to a group of activists to protest the ‘overexploitation’ of Lanzarote and the ‘suicidal’ tourism model that prevails in the community.
The president of Lanzarote, Dolores Corujo, announced her intention to receive fewer tourists with higher spending in the destination in order to generate greater wealth and guarantee the future of generations to come.
Eustaquio Villalba, geographer and spokesman for ATAN (Tenerife Friends of Nature Association) said: “What has happened in the Canary Islands in recent years gives us cause for optimism. All the parties have been talking about sustainable development since the 1990s, but the reality of the facts has gone in the opposite direction”
Mr Villalba called for a stop to building new large structures on the island. He added: “To avoid collapse, a stop must be put in place. There can be no more urbanisation. The effort should be focused on the renovation of the tourist plant and not on construction.”
He also claimed that part of the reason for the problems on Lanzarote was the ‘quality’ of the tourism.
He said: “Whatever type of offer we make, it has to be accompanied by a limitation of the number. Otherwise, we will reach the point of collapse, as is already happening on other islands such as Tenerife.”
Despite the concerns for the future of tourism on the island and the negative effects of oversaturation, analysis released by the Town Hall reported that economically, the tourism sector was key for Lanzarote.
The report revealed that for every €10,000 of income in the accommodation sector, 1.78 jobs are generated, and for every 1,000 overnight stays, almost seven jobs are created.
While, for every 100 travellers entering the island, five people were employed.
In this sense, the growth in tourism on the Canary Island could be seen as a positive, since the number of people in Lanzarote living below the poverty line doubled from 2001 to 2018.
