Tourism makes up 35% of the Canarian market but impedes its environmental well-being.
I wasn’t a hypocrite, but I felt like one. Months of research on the effects of mass tourism on the Canary Islands did not absolve me of the feeling that I was a tourist myself. What made me better than any of the soon-to-be-sunburned visitors on United Airlines 248 from Newark to Tenerife? My flight path, the only direct route between North America and the Canaries, opened in summer 2022 as an effort from United to jumpstart summer travel post-pandemic.
Even before I arrived at my destination, the context of the journey alone weighed on me heavily; in a way, I was contributing to the very problem I was writing about. In Tenerife South Airport, the man who made my café con leche wished me “¡Buenas vacaciones!” I not only felt out of place, like anyone would in a new environment. I also felt guilty.
Despite my in-depth research, what lingered at top-of-mind were the headlines: “Tourismphobia”; “Protesters Spray Tourists With Water Guns”; “‘Tourists Go Home’ Signs Cause Panic.’”
I internalized all of them not as personal attacks, but as moral judgments. I wanted more than anything to be good to this place that was hurting, despite my status as a visitor. So, I switched up my shower routine, turning the water off when I wasn’t actively rinsing out a product. I bought fewer groceries, cooked them all, and ate the leftovers. I used the guagua lines instead of renting a car—sometimes enduring three-plus hours between different buses to arrive at a destination that was a 40-minute drive away.
More and more, I settled in. However, I can’t only credit my daily routines. In the Canary Islands, I received exceptional hospitality, the kind I will never forget—the kind that hasn’t been written about amid sensationalized reporting about “hate” for tourists. I interviewed a travel agency director, and he gave his daughter my Instagram. The next day, we went out for cervecitas (beers) and she introduced me to all of her friends. I asked a construction manager for a follow-up conversation, and he invited me over to his house for a home-cooked lunch with his family.
When I ate alone at coffee shops or tapas restaurants, strangers greeted me, ask what I was reading, where I was from, that my Spanish was great (even when it wasn’t). People went out of their way to explain that the Canary Islands has always welcomed people from everywhere, with open arms and open doors. But the rise in tourist numbers and, with it, economic activity, has not coincided with an increase in wealth or better quality of life for workers in the tourism industry.
It’s often that people with the most wealth in the Canary Islands are from elsewhere, like the German family who owns Loro Parque and Siam Park; or the Belgian investors of the Cuna del Alma tourism “macroproject.” The Canary Islands are incredibly attractive to foreign investors, who benefit from tax incentives and the year-round sunshine. But the economic benefit comes at an environmental cost. In a place with strained resources—Tenerife is effectively a growing desert—how many more people can the island take?
Sustainable choices have always grounded me in the face of everyday climate anxiety: I can’t change the world, but I can use a reusable coffee cup. Stuff like that. Still, I know the extent to which my actions make a difference. I know my own futility. I am one person, and the planet keeps turning and fossil fuels keep burning. I look toward the future with hope for change, little by little, on a bigger scale, like the ongoing energy transition in the United States.
In the same vein, the anti-tourism movement that caught the media’s attention (and mine) over the summer isn’t focused on individual tourists. Protesters demand more than self-sacrifice from prospective tourists. They fight for systemic changes to their tourism model that will allow them dignified work; and they fight for the protection of their environment for generations of locals and visitors to come.
