Irish tourists heading to Tenerife and Majorca warned amid 'rising tensions'

Irish tourists heading on holiday to a number of regions of Spain, including island resorts Tenerife and Majorca, are being made aware of rising tensions and a number of changes locally.

A number of protests in the like of Tenerife, Majorca and Malaga have seen holidaymakers from Ireland, Britain and beyond to "get out", "stay away" or "go home."

A poster spotted by some in Malaga recently advised tourists to "f**k off home" while in Tenerife graffiti marking the words "go home" has been reported.

Last summer, a video circulated online of protesters shouting at tourists and telling them to "go home" at a popular resort on the island. The Canary islands in particular are hugely popular with Irish tourists.

There are tensions over housing with some local tenants reportedly being given notices to leave properties to make way for holiday rentals. In Malaga, locals are said to be sick of the situation.

A number of changes in policy have even been introduced in Magaluf, a noted party holiday spot on the island of Majorca. Authorities are clamping down on what they deem to be the "aggressive sale" of alcohol, including happy hours and the times during which alcohol can be sold at supermarkets. 

Magaluf Mayor Alfonso Rodriguez has said they are tackling other issues like "the degradation of women with wild party games in the large pubs.

"We’ve banned pub crawls and the advertising of party boats, which are no longer allowed to sell alcohol on board," he is reported as saying in a local publication.

In terms of the Canary Islands like Lanzarote, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands Tourist Board told us last month they still want tourists and defended the holiday industry their against local protest in terms of the environment and cost of living for locals.

In a statement, a spokesperson said: "The Canary Islands received 14.6 million tourists until November 2023. Estimating the month of December, for which the data is not yet available, we can say that the Canary Islands would have received 16.2 million tourists during the year 2023.

"A figure that had already been reached in 2017, three years before the pandemic was declared, when 16 million tourists arrived on the islands. In fact, between 2017 and 2020, the range of visitors that the Canary Islands received was between 16 million and 15.1 million, never a lower amount."

They went on to say that "in no case can the number of tourists be confused with the number of passengers transiting through the Canary Islands airports, which, as AENA reported, was 48.4 million in 2023. But it must be taken into account that all passengers are not tourists and that round trips are taken into account, as well as inter-island air traffic."

As for last year 2023, the monthly distribution of tourists was as follows:

"The influx of tourists is very stable throughout the year, with hardly any seasonality. Nationalities alternate and net balances are compensated," the tourism spokesperson said.

"This means the presence of 312,216 tourists in the Canary Islands daily, so the pressure on the territory and its resources and the local population is much less than in other destinations that concentrate the arrival of tourists in specific periods of the year."

They also pointed out the climate action taken in the region to mitigate environmental impacts.

"Our destination has been a pioneer in taking on the goals and commitments set out in the Glasgow Declaration, which pursues Net Zero by 2050. We were the first Spanish region to adhere to this commitment with a Climate Action Plan. 

"In addition, we have made the digital tool Journey to Decarbonisation available to tourism companies, which will allow the sector to measure and reduce its carbon footprint," they concluded.