The sector of Tenerife’s professional tour guides begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Six months after their SOS in the midst of a pandemic with many of them almost without income for a year –since March 2020– due to the lack of tourists on the Island, this summer the recovery begins. This is how Laura Bethencourt Yanes, president of the Professional Association of Tourist Guides of Tenerife (APIT), assures it. He adds that “this August, which is traditionally a low season month for us, there has been more work than other years. You can see a rebound, but we are coming from practically zero ». He makes it clear that “this reactivation is not uniform, but rather that some are doing better than others.” The group is currently made up of 120 qualified guides (there are more on the Island, but they are not associated).
Among the most positive of these days for the tourist guides has been the launch of the Tenerife Tourism Initiative Again to feel your Island, so that they lead the tour of forty routes throughout the island geography aimed at the local population. His representative values: «It is something very positive, of course. This is what we asked at the time, when we launched that message of relief in the face of the crisis. And so it was approved in its day by the plenary session of the Cabildo –at the request of the CC-PNC Group– ».
Bethencourt values: «The important thing is that the project has gone ahead and that, in addition, we have designed it ourselves and that we are also going to carry out a good part of the chosen cultural and heritage routes ».
Laura Bethencourt recalls: «After last February, the situation remained bad for a few more months, but in the summer it was reactivated. Especially in August. It specifies that “it has helped us that there are more difficulties in finding rental cars and that people choose to move around the island by bus.” Those who have benefited the most, he points out, “have been those who speak two or three languages; They have not lacked work, especially with large agencies. There has also been more activity in terms of hiking or active tourism initiatives. Laura highlights “the impulse of various business groups, especially in the South, and of some municipalities to develop walking excursions, which have given us work for qualified guides this summer.”
La Laguna and Santa Cruz
There are criticisms of the bulk of the guided tours in the main cities of the Island, Santa Cruz and La Laguna: «They continue to do free tours in which they have not counted on us. We understand that it is about unfair competition, because they do not pay taxes and it is detrimental to the profession, although in La Laguna the guide is qualified, unlike in Santa Cruz. But we can do little more than report it.
Another problem for the guides is «not being able to access a transport card that allows us to take clients in our own vehicle, especially families who want to travel with maximum safety through the covid-19. We fight to change the regulations and adapt them to the demand of the visitor market, which is great and to which we cannot respond due to this circumstance. It would undoubtedly improve the quality of the service ».
From black to white
The pandemic of coronavirus and its effects practically left the licensed guides on the island without work. There were almost no tourists and practically no one to guide. The guides were among the first groups to suffer the impact of almost zero tourism. Group cancellations came as early as February 2020, before the declaration of the state of alarm on March 13. There the activity stopped until this summer. Almost all of the guides are autonomous. The vast majority, over 70%, have not had the opportunity to work in about a year. But they have had to pay the payment of the fee – between 287 and 350 euros per month the least.
They had problems recognizing the cessation of activity, although they were admitted. That allowed them access to state aid of 930 euros. If the fixed expense of the self-employed is subtracted, there are 600 per month. They consider that the support of the Canary Islands Government, with a single payment of 424.98 euros.
But the crisis does not last forever. Now a door to hope opens. Guiding Tenerife residents through the geography of their Island is one option. On weekends, with a maximum of twenty people, strict anticovid sanitary measures and routes to choose from among the trails in the Anaga Rural Park, Teno or Teide National Park, observe the stars or spend a fun day in the Zip lines at Forestal Park, on Mount La Esperanza.
It is also possible to sign up for themed cultural routes guided by the historic centers of towns and cities. Santa Cruz, La Laguna, Garachico, La Orotava, Icod de los Vinos, Arona or Adeje. From zero tourism and unemployment to the reactivation of the guide trade in just three months.
