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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Canaries say no to mass tourism and do young Basques want independence?

In this week's Inside Spain, we look at the reasons behind Saturday's protests against mass tourism in the Canary Islands and why many young Basques will vote on Sunday for a party descended from terrorist group ETA.

Published: 20 April 2024 13:38 CEST
Inside Spain: Canaries say no to mass tourism and do young Basques want independence?
The urban development of the Canary Islands has been rampant over the past decades in a bid to welcome more and more tourists. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

On Saturday April 20th, thousands of people across the eight islands that make up the Canary archipelago will take to the streets to protest a tourism model which many Canarios believe is now failing them and their beloved land. 

In fact, there will also be demonstrations in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Granada and even Berlin, Amsterdam and London, under the same slogan: Canarias tiene un límite (The Canary Islands have a limit). 

It’s already made international headlines due to the alleged wave of ‘tourismphobia’ that’s sweeping across Spain’s holiday hotspots in recent weeks and months (mainly ‘tourists go home’ messages in the form of graffiti or stickers). 

But the protest organisers have been quick to stress that they are not against tourists per se, but rather the voracious mass tourism monster which is eating up their islands, demanding more hotels to cater for more tourists despite the limited land available.

So why now, when Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura have offered the ‘sun, sea and sangría’ package holiday deal for decades?

Because as the slogan states, the Canaries have a limit. 

The islands are running out of space as around 40 percent of their territory is protected and their population keeps increasing (2.2 million in 2024), mainly due to the arrival of foreigners, meaning that the population density in Tenerife and Gran Canaria is off the charts.

Add 14 million yearly tourists to the mix and it really starts to put pressure on resources: water, electricity, sewage, roads, parking spaces and crucially housing.

Little space, few plans for social housing and holiday lets spreading like wildfire have led property prices and rents in the Canaries to increase more than in any other region in Spain in 2023, even though their wages are the second lowest in the country.

To cap it off, the record tourism numbers and revenue Canary authorities brag about do not reflect on people’s earnings or quality of life, quite the opposite, and there’s a sense that locals have become second-class citizens in their own land while tourists are given priority.

The challenge after Saturday’s protests will be to clearly define how exactly there can be a change of tourism model when the industry accounts for 35 percent of the islands’ GDP and 40 percent of jobs. 

Similar introspection may happen in the Basque Country this Sunday when up to 1.8 million people head to the polls to vote in their regional elections. 

The Catalan independence bid has stolen the limelight from Basque separatism in recent years, not least because many Basque nationalists were forced to reconcile with the fact that ETA was a terrorist group which killed 850 people over 42 years in the name of their cause.

Even though this has meant that separatist voices have fallen silent for the last two decades, EH Bildu, a party descended from ETA, leads in the polls, having garnered the attention of young Basques in particular. 

READ MORE: Why separatist Bildu spells hope for Basque youth as Spanish region votes

There’s a sense among commentators that this ‘amnesia’ exists not only because they didn’t live through the bloody years of car bombs and explosive packages, but that the history of ETA and its impact on Basque society isn’t being taught in local schools. 

What has struck a chord among young voters appears to be more closely related to EH Bildu’s left-wing policies rather than their refusal to call ETA a terrorist group. For the Basque Socialist Party, “they pretend to be left-wing but what they really want is independence”.

Whatever happens on Sunday, it’s unlikely to reflect a sudden change in stance regarding Basque independence. A recent survey found that support for Basque separatism has fallen by 30 percent over the last decade among voters of the region’s two most nationalist parties, the PNV and EH Bildu. 

It seems that being a nationalist in the Basque Country no longer equates to being a separatist.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Madrid’s mango-scented tarmac and the €1M-a-year Airbnb host

In this week’s Inside Spain, we find out why Madrid residents are kicking up a stink over mango-smelling tarmac and how not everything is what it seems with normal-looking Airbnb hosts in Spain.

Published: 27 April 2024 13:31 CEST
Inside Spain: Madrid’s mango-scented tarmac and the €1M-a-year Airbnb host

Residents in some streets of Spain’s capital woke up this week to the scent of tropical fruit, as the city hall rolled out new mango-scented tarmac as a bizarre means of improving foul-smelling odours outdoors, as well as apparently hiding the scent of freshly poured asphalt itself. 

“Those of us who have an especially large pituitary, as is my case, will appreciate it even more,” said Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida. 

“I’m getting dizzy from the strong smell of mango, I live on the first floor and I had to close all the windows for it not to smell indoors,” one less appreciative resident told local TV channel TeleMadrid. 

This mango aroma addition is a trial that’s part of Madrid’s “Operation Asphalt” (a plan to improve city roads), but it’s somewhat backfired on social media among disgruntled madrileños who claim it would’ve been much better to plant fruit trees if that’s a suitable way of improving street smells.

Unfortunately, Madrid authorities have been doing the opposite of that, having chopped down almost 9,000 trees over the past two years.

 Almeida has responded to critics by arguing that more than 5,000 trees have been planted during that time, although their distribution is far less even than it used to be, with the districts of Fuencarral- El Pardo and Hortaleza on the northern outskirts of the city housing 90 percent of these new trees. 

Nowhere exemplifies this better than Madrid’s main square Puerta del Sol as its revamp in 2022 included plenty of new cement but no trees.

It’s a concern for many Madrid residents dreading the dangerously high heat of the summer months, and who are aware that trees not only provide shade but help to keep neighbourhood temperatures down. 

Another story that’s been doing the rounds in Spain this week is that of Fran and Marta, an apparently normal couple with a young daughter who are Airbnb hosts, only that they have a portfolio of 336 properties in Madrid and rake in over €1 million a year. If anyone is a so-called ‘superhost’, it’s them. 

They don’t really own all those homes, they just manage them for the real owners through a company that uses endearing family photos and first names on their Airbnb profiles rather than a more distant and corporate company logo. 

Spanish newspaper El Confidencial lifted the lid on Fran, who is a real person, but sometimes goes by Diego, Rodrigo or Raúl, all with roughly 100 Airbnb listings each. Most of these properties don’t have a tourist property licence. 

Interviewed on Spanish daytime talk show TardeAR, whose host Ana Rosa praised him for the “enormously successful marketing operation” of pretending to be a normal small property holder to Airbnb users, Fran said he only had a mortgage for a small flat in the capital and that “you don’t earn that much”. 

“There are a lot of fake rich people when it comes to holiday lets,” he stated. 

What there are more of than we realise is fake landlords on Airbnb, at a time when the question of short-term holiday lets and their impact on local property and rental markets in Spain has never been greater. 

READ MORE: Who really owns all the Airbnb-style lets in Spain?

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