He Arona Town Hall, Ashotel and Sindicalistas de Base (SB) yesterday analyzed the serious problem that affects numerous workers in the tourism sector in the municipality, who are struggling to find housing in an area relatively close to their workplace due to the rampant rental price. This worrying reality, which extends throughout the south of Tenerife, led the majority union organization in the hotel sector to warn on August 14 in NOTICE DIARY of a possible “collapse” of tourism for a situation that considers “untenable”.
The mayor of Aron, Fátima Lemes, recalled that the problem not only affects the workers who come to the municipality, but also the residents who demand housing. “It is necessary for all administrations to collaborate in the search for a solution,” she said, while announcing that this will be one of the points that she will address in her next meeting with the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo. For her part, the Councilor for Tourism, Dácil León, indicated that her department and the Urban Planning Department are already working on finding solutions within municipal powers.
In the note sent yesterday by the Arona City Council it is indicated that the manager of Ashotel, Juan Pablo González, explained to the councilors that this is a problem that affects the coverage of the employment offer in the area, since workers from Other parts of the Island cannot find accommodation to accept a job in hotels and restaurants in the South.
The general secretary of the Grassroots Unionists, Manuel Fitas, who also attended yesterday’s meeting held at the Arona City Hall, has been warning for months that accessing a house or an apartment where they can reside temporarily is an “impossible” mission for employees of the tourism sector, and emphasizes that the increase in rent prices not only affects the areas closest to the large tourist centers, “also above the highway and in mid-sized neighborhoods.”
VARIOUS CAUSES
The lack of public houses, the entry of vulture funds (which have withdrawn part of the supply from the market to speculate on it) and, above all, the increase in vacation homes in tourist areas and their surroundings have aggravated the housing problem in the south of Tenerife and have caused rental prices to skyrocket.
The Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Jessica de León (PP), announced on the day of her inauguration, last July 15, that one of her priorities will be to “bell the cat” of vacation rentals, that is , regulate the boom that a tourist activity has experienced that has strained the housing market and has affected the provision of public services.
For its part, the Canarian Association of Holiday Homes (Ascav) insists that the rental of a private home to a tourist represents in itself the “free exercise of the right that any person has to rent their property” and remembers that “the “Tourism is the heritage of everyone, not of a few.”
