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Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. They’re between a rock and a hard place. The government needs to figure out a way that the locals c

Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. They’re between a rock and a hard place. The government needs to figure out a way that the locals can capture more of the value tourists bring.

Jedd 3y ago
> Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. That's not strictly true, and it's (stopping all tourists) not what they're advocating. A third of their GDP comes (directly) from tourism, which suggests some room to move (downwards) on tourist quotas, while still retaining a fair amount of revenue from that sector, but without jeopardising access to scarce resources (potable water, housing, etc).
- _1_1_1_1_1_1_ 3y ago
  They could change the laws so as to halve the tourist load, but double the money extracted per tourist. Really just a matter of stopping unscrupulous businesses from renting out common (public) resources at rock bottom prices and externalizing the costs. Sure it would destroy the cheap end of Canary Islands tourism, but the local government should be looking out for it's citizens interests, not the interests of outsiders who want a cut-rate vacation.
dendrite9 3y ago
I struggle with the idea of tourism being a good basis for an economy. At some point you reach a level where the appeal is outweighed by crowding, and the experiences people want are no longer available.
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  Sounds like that’s solved by raising prices, no?
  - forkerenok 3y ago
    Yep, exactly my thought. Start raising prices (via taxes or touristic accommodation quotas or whatever) and find that goldilocks zone balancing revenue and pressure on the environment/locals.
    - ggpsv 3y ago
      The problem here is that this creates negative externalities on the housing market unless regulation is in place. Otherwise, it creates an incentive for short-term housing over long-term housing, which affects the people who do live there. This is the crux of the matter in many places that have a problem with tourism.
      - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
        Regulation is definitely necessary to protect low-income residents. Areas that understand this and implement it well will be rewarded for it.
      - _1_1_1_1_1_1_ 3y ago
        tax stays of less than 3 months by 50%
  - chgs 3y ago
    Surely it’s self limiting, as more tourists arrive the attractiveness goes down. From a sustainability point of view though 10,000 people concentrated in a single tourist complex is better than 100 villages with 100 people each.
    - defrost 3y ago
      It's not a 100 villages though, is it? It's 2.2 million local residents living a long term largely sustainable life that are being swamped by an additional non resident 13.9 million people per annum.
      - 3y ago
- em500 3y ago
  Sure, but what are the alternatives? They never had significant industrialization. Before mass tourism, their economies were based on fishing and banana farming. The British Crown Dependencies, without the great weather and scenery of the Canaries, developed into offshore tax havens.
eesmith 3y ago
Which is why Víctor Martín in the article is quoted as saying: “The problem isn’t the tourists,” he said. “It’s a model that was built around – and with the connivance of – a business class that doesn’t want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens.”
- kvgr 3y ago
  There is a lot of illegal accommodation and illegal housing. They are not able to catch that.. or they dont want to
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Yes, the "they" in your "They are not able" is the "political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens".
nonrandomstring 3y ago
I know the islands well. Tourism is still only a third of the economy there. International shipping and agriculture sustained the islands for hundreds of years, prior to the 1970s when cheap jet air travel came of age. They import a lot now, but can in theory totally self-sustain. Each of the islands has a very different biosphere suited to different farming. We should pay attention to the Canary Islands, the rest of the planet is the coal mine, The problem is identified as "tourism" but their relation to the global economics within a climate change context is the real story. > 13.9 million people visited the islands Nearly all of them flew there. A few passenger cruise ships stop by. > a water emergency is already been declared on Tenerife They've a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and now 36 degrees in April after a dry winter. Most of Tenerife is volcanic and the plant life around tourist areas is heavily irrigated. Without that it's a quite barren, unattractive environment. Without enough water for just the population, tourism is unsustainable. > It's a model that was built around a business class that doesn't want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens. So, the usual root causes, greed and short-term thinking.
- yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
  > We should pay attention to the Canary Islands, the rest of the planet is the coal mine I enjoyed this line.
- hcks 3y ago
  > only a third of the economy Yeah and I’m sure the rest is advanced industry and not at all goods and services consumed by the tourism-industry workers and their families
- NoPie 3y ago
  Santa Cruz where most of the local population lives gets half of its water from desalination plant. Desalination is already cost-effective and can provide water for tourists if needed. They would just need to build a desalination plant in the south. Electricity already is largely generated by wind, solar and tide. Air transportation probably causes the biggest pollution. Apart from that such tourism is very sustainable. It provides value to people who need to go on holidays. It doesn't matter if the food and necessities are imported because tourists would have consumed the food anyway if they had stayed at home. While it causes unsustainable rent increases to local population, that can be managed somehow. Maybe give subsidies to them by using the profits from tourism. Tourism tax is not unusual invention in many places.
lobochrome 3y ago
Tourists bring little value beyond what they spend on themselves. That’s why countries that have developed a strong tourism base struggle to develop further. It’s an economic dead end.
newswasboring 3y ago
> Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. Nobody is arguing to take away tourism. They are arguing against it's unsustainable growth. The industry is perfectly ok in it's current state, brings in 16bn dollars a year.
- pydry 3y ago
  “The problem isn’t the tourists,” he said. “It’s a model that was built around – and with the connivance of – a business class that doesn’t want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens.” Yup. The problem is the local elites and their tendency towards profit maximization at the expense of everything else. It's a very familiar story.
  - robocat 3y ago
    Place the blame where it belongs: the government and regulating the industry. Businesses and elites are playing the game according to the rules that they are given. Maybe the rules need improving, but that is a governance problem. There are reasons why the governance is difficult (e.g. capture) but that doesn’t mean blame should be shifted.
    - javcasas 3y ago
      Businesses and elites are playing the game according to the rules that they are lobbying for. Fixed that for you.
      - pydry 3y ago
        Yeah, they do like to pretend that the game either exists in either a vacuum or a direct democracy that is untainted by those same elites.
    - newswasboring 3y ago
      > Place the blame where it belongs: the government and regulating the industry. Why? Why are we blaming the guard who is trying to stop the hoard from destroying the city rather than the hoard which is destroying the city? Companies need to behave ethically and if they dont know what is ethical I'm sure they can afford to have some philosophers on the board. And if they can't afford that, that still doesn't absolve them from their unethical behavior. I refuse to participate in this blame shifting mentality, as if companies have no other choice but to be unethical.
kvgr 3y ago
It is a beautiful place, but without tourists its basically just goats and bananas.
- Gud 3y ago
  And what’s wrong with that?
  - kvgr 3y ago
    Inherently nothing, but you cannot build economy just on that. How would you import all expensive stuff on island? People would be unhappy that they don’t have jobs. People are never truly satisfied with anything.
- lifestyleguru 3y ago
  That's all a real man and a woman need.

Jedd 3y ago

> Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. That's not strictly true, and it's (stopping all tourists) not what they're advocating. A third of their GDP comes (directly) from tourism, which suggests some room to move (downwards) on tourist quotas, while still retaining a fair amount of revenue from that sector, but without jeopardising access to scarce resources (potable water, housing, etc).

_1_1_1_1_1_1_ 3y ago
They could change the laws so as to halve the tourist load, but double the money extracted per tourist. Really just a matter of stopping unscrupulous businesses from renting out common (public) resources at rock bottom prices and externalizing the costs. Sure it would destroy the cheap end of Canary Islands tourism, but the local government should be looking out for it's citizens interests, not the interests of outsiders who want a cut-rate vacation.

dendrite9 3y ago

I struggle with the idea of tourism being a good basis for an economy. At some point you reach a level where the appeal is outweighed by crowding, and the experiences people want are no longer available.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
Sounds like that’s solved by raising prices, no?
- forkerenok 3y ago
  Yep, exactly my thought. Start raising prices (via taxes or touristic accommodation quotas or whatever) and find that goldilocks zone balancing revenue and pressure on the environment/locals.
  - ggpsv 3y ago
    The problem here is that this creates negative externalities on the housing market unless regulation is in place. Otherwise, it creates an incentive for short-term housing over long-term housing, which affects the people who do live there. This is the crux of the matter in many places that have a problem with tourism.
    - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
      Regulation is definitely necessary to protect low-income residents. Areas that understand this and implement it well will be rewarded for it.
    - _1_1_1_1_1_1_ 3y ago
      tax stays of less than 3 months by 50%
- chgs 3y ago
  Surely it’s self limiting, as more tourists arrive the attractiveness goes down. From a sustainability point of view though 10,000 people concentrated in a single tourist complex is better than 100 villages with 100 people each.
  - defrost 3y ago
    It's not a 100 villages though, is it? It's 2.2 million local residents living a long term largely sustainable life that are being swamped by an additional non resident 13.9 million people per annum.
    - 3y ago
em500 3y ago
Sure, but what are the alternatives? They never had significant industrialization. Before mass tourism, their economies were based on fishing and banana farming. The British Crown Dependencies, without the great weather and scenery of the Canaries, developed into offshore tax havens.

eesmith 3y ago

Which is why Víctor Martín in the article is quoted as saying: “The problem isn’t the tourists,” he said. “It’s a model that was built around – and with the connivance of – a business class that doesn’t want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens.”

kvgr 3y ago
There is a lot of illegal accommodation and illegal housing. They are not able to catch that.. or they dont want to
- eesmith 3y ago
  Yes, the "they" in your "They are not able" is the "political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens".

nonrandomstring 3y ago

I know the islands well. Tourism is still only a third of the economy there. International shipping and agriculture sustained the islands for hundreds of years, prior to the 1970s when cheap jet air travel came of age. They import a lot now, but can in theory totally self-sustain. Each of the islands has a very different biosphere suited to different farming. We should pay attention to the Canary Islands, the rest of the planet is the coal mine, The problem is identified as "tourism" but their relation to the global economics within a climate change context is the real story. > 13.9 million people visited the islands Nearly all of them flew there. A few passenger cruise ships stop by. > a water emergency is already been declared on Tenerife They've a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and now 36 degrees in April after a dry winter. Most of Tenerife is volcanic and the plant life around tourist areas is heavily irrigated. Without that it's a quite barren, unattractive environment. Without enough water for just the population, tourism is unsustainable. > It's a model that was built around a business class that doesn't want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens. So, the usual root causes, greed and short-term thinking.

yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
> We should pay attention to the Canary Islands, the rest of the planet is the coal mine I enjoyed this line.
hcks 3y ago
> only a third of the economy Yeah and I’m sure the rest is advanced industry and not at all goods and services consumed by the tourism-industry workers and their families
NoPie 3y ago
Santa Cruz where most of the local population lives gets half of its water from desalination plant. Desalination is already cost-effective and can provide water for tourists if needed. They would just need to build a desalination plant in the south. Electricity already is largely generated by wind, solar and tide. Air transportation probably causes the biggest pollution. Apart from that such tourism is very sustainable. It provides value to people who need to go on holidays. It doesn't matter if the food and necessities are imported because tourists would have consumed the food anyway if they had stayed at home. While it causes unsustainable rent increases to local population, that can be managed somehow. Maybe give subsidies to them by using the profits from tourism. Tourism tax is not unusual invention in many places.

lobochrome 3y ago

Tourists bring little value beyond what they spend on themselves. That’s why countries that have developed a strong tourism base struggle to develop further. It’s an economic dead end.

newswasboring 3y ago

> Take away the tourists and they have no economy and no jobs. Nobody is arguing to take away tourism. They are arguing against it's unsustainable growth. The industry is perfectly ok in it's current state, brings in 16bn dollars a year.

pydry 3y ago
“The problem isn’t the tourists,” he said. “It’s a model that was built around – and with the connivance of – a business class that doesn’t want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens.” Yup. The problem is the local elites and their tendency towards profit maximization at the expense of everything else. It's a very familiar story.
- robocat 3y ago
  Place the blame where it belongs: the government and regulating the industry. Businesses and elites are playing the game according to the rules that they are given. Maybe the rules need improving, but that is a governance problem. There are reasons why the governance is difficult (e.g. capture) but that doesn’t mean blame should be shifted.
  - javcasas 3y ago
    Businesses and elites are playing the game according to the rules that they are lobbying for. Fixed that for you.
    - pydry 3y ago
      Yeah, they do like to pretend that the game either exists in either a vacuum or a direct democracy that is untainted by those same elites.
  - newswasboring 3y ago
    > Place the blame where it belongs: the government and regulating the industry. Why? Why are we blaming the guard who is trying to stop the hoard from destroying the city rather than the hoard which is destroying the city? Companies need to behave ethically and if they dont know what is ethical I'm sure they can afford to have some philosophers on the board. And if they can't afford that, that still doesn't absolve them from their unethical behavior. I refuse to participate in this blame shifting mentality, as if companies have no other choice but to be unethical.

kvgr 3y ago

It is a beautiful place, but without tourists its basically just goats and bananas.

Gud 3y ago
And what’s wrong with that?
- kvgr 3y ago
  Inherently nothing, but you cannot build economy just on that. How would you import all expensive stuff on island? People would be unhappy that they don’t have jobs. People are never truly satisfied with anything.
lifestyleguru 3y ago
That's all a real man and a woman need.