Tenerife crackdown on 'all inclusive' UK tourists with Brits told 'leave'

The deputy mayor of a European holiday hot spot has urged Brits "to go elsewhere" - days after locals organised an anti-tourism protests. Holidaymakers have faced tensions in Tenerife as locals protest over what they perceive to be "overtourism" amid a decline in living standards for locals.

Local outlet El Dia reports First Deputy Mayor and Councilor for Public Services, Environment and European Projects of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, Carlos Terife, said the island needs to undergo the evolution to higher quality tourism.

El Dia reports he said: "Where before there were hotels with 250 beds, today we are in hotels of fewer beds and of higher quality. I think that is the tourism we need in our country, not the bracelet and 'all-inclusive', of "I stay inside the hotel and do everything inside the hotel."

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He wants "five-star and five-star luxury hotels", where tourists "not only come to enjoy the facilities, but come to eat our local product, etc." Tens of thousands of people in Spain's Canary Islands this weeken drallied against a model of mass tourism they say is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.

"The major problem is that it's the model of massive tourism that is intransigent in the island... [for] decades, and it's just destroying the island... and the life of the residents here," protester Lydia Morales told the BBC this weekend.

"We are feeling we're being pushed away, our priorities are not taken in consideration," she said, adding that politicians were "more focused" on building tourism complexes and hotels. In 2023, 13.9 million tourists visited the seven main islands.

That is about six times more than the islands' population of 2.2 million. An estimated 57,000 people joined the protests, which began at midday on Saturday, Spanish media reports said, citing the central government’s representative in the islands.

The Canary Islands, which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa, are known for their volcanic landscapes and year-round sunshine attracting millions of visitors every year, with four in 10 residents working in tourism.