Jorge Marichal, president of the hotel association in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, stated in an interview with COPE that “we are jeopardising our society’s way of life” by being portrayed “on prime time television” and in British media with “anti-tourism messages”.
Marichal emphatically mentioned that he is aware that some hotels in Tenerife have been receiving calls from tourists asking if it is safe to travel to Tenerife. “And it’s no wonder, with the conflicting messages shown to tourists, where, on one hand, they are encouraged to come to the islands to enjoy their holidays, but some locals show rejection towards tourism due to existing structural issues,” he explained.
He continued saying that all this is “instigated by two gentlemen who think differently,” referring to the groups that have called for various demonstrations in Canary Islands on 20th April to demand a change in the current tourism model, whom he respects a lot but would like to “be able to explain to them what they are doing and the consequences this may have.”
He then put himself in the shoes of a British or German tourist watching some reports published in recent days and considered it normal for them to consider travelling to the Canary Islands if they know they will be welcomed with “signs at the airports” saying “they are not wanted.”
The president of Ashotel expressed his opinion that the activists who have announced a hunger strike if the Government of the Canary Islands does not definitively suspend the construction of the La Tejita hotel and the Cuna del Alma complex are “completely misguided” and he accused them of being “populists”.
He emphasized that the promoters of both projects have “established rights (…) no matter how -someone- climbs a crane or goes on a hunger strike.”
Regarding demands for a change in the model and measures such as a tourism moratorium, Marichal complained that “people do not understand” that there are fewer hotel and non-hotel establishments than ten years ago even though the number of beds has increased by 2%, attributing problems like traffic jams or rising rents to the 220,000 holiday home spots enabled in this period.
“It’s normal to have this certain discomfort among the population,” Marichal said, expressing “great sadness” because “people are misunderstanding the message. We shouldn’t be against tourism, but demand that the infrastructure aligns with the tourism model that has changed due to platforms like Airbnb,” he asserted.
