Tenerife locals demand crackdown on ‘ignorant’ tourists | World | News

Tenerife locals are demanding a crackdown on tourism, with protests against rising prices for locals

Tensions on the holiday island beloved by Brits are rising, with people expecting the protests to spread to other popular holiday destinations in mainland Spain.

A series of graffiti messages were scrawled on walls and buildings, reading ‘tourists go home’, ‘your paradise, our misery’, and ‘average salary in Canary Islands €1,200.’ 

In 2023, Tenerife received 5.6million visitors, up 600,000 compared to 2019, setting a new record. 

Now, locals are furious that holidaymakers are turning their paradise island into a ‘tourism ghetto’ thanks to soaring rents, inflation and yobbish behaviour.

Josua Garcia-Garcia, 33, who works in a bar in Playas de las Americas, told the Olive Press that he agrees with the protests and Tenerife needs tougher rules for tourists.

He said: “It can be a nightmare when the tourists come, I only get four hours of sleep every night because of the music and noise, which keeps me up until 3am. 

“We need stricter rules for tourists, a lot of them are ignorant of how we are suffering. 

“Rents are soaring and people on average salaries cannot afford to live here anymore, once they pay their rent they have no money for food.

“Some areas have been totally saturated by tourism. The police need to be tougher and bring in stricter rules, people are fed up.”

Anti-tourism campaigners claim an increase in holiday lets means an increasing number of homes are unavailable to rent to locals. This decreases supply and therefore brings price increases.

The march was organised by almost a dozen social and environmental groups, who are calling for a tourism ‘eco-tax’. 

They claimed the island’s services ‘totally collapsed’, with ‘a coast full of sewage spills, kilometre long traffic jams’ and the ‘destruction of the environment due to the construction of new hotel complexes in coastal areas’.