Groups in the Canary Islands have called another protest against mass tourism on the Spanish islands in what has been hinted could be a ‘hot autumn’ with further demonstrations possible.
Scheduled for five months after the last held in April, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, the next will take place on October 20th across different parts of the archipelago.
The protest has been called by dozens of local groups and organisations because "the political parties and institutions, far from attending to social demands and showing any sign of having understood the very serious problem we are facing, continue to support a predatory tourism model."
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Eugenio Reyes, a spokesman for Ben Magec-Ecologistas en Acción, told Radio Club Tenerife that the demonstration could be the beginning of a ‘hot autumn” with further action.
Reyes also explained a slight change in the movement’s tactical approach, no longer hoping to solely put large numbers in the street but “to work with target sectors” given the lack of response from local government: “The Canary Islands government has turned a deaf ear and is activating projects… They have pressed the accelerator instead of dialogue," he said.
Demands include stricter rules on tourist rental properties, limits of the purchase of housing by non-residents, a eco-tax and the stopping of two new construction projects in Tenerife.
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“Now it is time to defend, centimetre by centimetre, the territory,” Reyes added.
This follows widespread protests movements across Spain this year, with mobilisations in Málaga, Madrid, Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and Granada, among other major cities.
Wherever it is, locals have taken to the streets demanding greater regulation of Spain’s mass tourism model and concrete steps to counteract the negative impact it has on locals.
Many point to the increase in short-term tourist rental properties in Spanish cities as the cause of rising rental prices, and demonstrators also bemoan the gentrifying effects of tourism and poor behaviour of tourists more generally.
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The call to action in the Canary Islands, however, came in the same week that the archipelago's Tourism Minister, Jessica de León Verdugo, effectively ruled out a moratorium on holiday rentals, something demanded by a cross section of political and social organisations, while a law to regulate the sector on the islands is still being processed as an avalanche of new applications are made.
The protests will all take place on Sunday October 20th and be coordinated across different parts of the islands.
In Tenerife, it will be held in the municipality of Adeje, in the south of the island, starting from Playa de las Américas.
Only last week, the town hall of Adeje gave the go-ahead to a mega hotel complex that will destroy the last remaining fishing village in the south of Tenerife, where the effects of mass tourism are most clearly visible.
In Fuerteventura protests will be held in the town of Corralejo, and in Gran Canaria the demo will take place in the popular tourist resort of Maspalomas.
READ ALSO: 'The island can't take it anymore' - Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism
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