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GRAN CANARIA, Spain\u00a0\u2013 Thousands of people protested against mass tourism in Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday, urging authorities to limit the number of visitors to protect local residents from soaring housing costs, traffic congestion and overburdened services.<\/p>\n
Marching under the banner “Canaries have a limit,” demonstrators took to the streets in all of the archipelago’s main islands and in several cities in mainland Spain. Some chanted about the effects of tourism on water supplies.<\/p>\n
“Tourism is very important for the Canary Islands, but we have to realize that the collapse is total,” Juan Francisco Galindo, a hotel manager in Tenerife, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
His father owns a small island property on which the local administration issued an expropriation order in 2023 due to the approval of a\u00a0luxury hotel complex project<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Those 70 square metres (750 square feet) that they want to expropriate are all my father has. His health situation has deteriorated since this happened,” he said.<\/p>\n More than 1 million foreign tourists visit the Canary Islands each month, compared to a local population of 2.2 million, according to official data.<\/p>\n New rules, bigger crowds: <\/strong>How to survive your 2025 European vacation<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n