Tenerife and Lanzarote 'beg' UK tourists as number of Brits 'need to be reduced'

Canary Islands have begged UK holidaymakers and tourists to visit despite anti-tourism protests. Minister have insisted islands like Lanzarote and Tenerife, as well as the likes of Fuerteventura, are safe amid a wave of "tourist phobia."

Jessica de León, who became regional tourism chief last July, told The Telegraph that the archipelago was still very much open for business. “It is still safe to visit the Canary Islands, and we are delighted to welcome you,” said Ms de León.

She said she understood protesters’ frustrations, particularly concerning the issue of housing, but that it was “unfair to blame tourism”. Fernando Clavijo, the Canary Islands president, has also weighed in, saying that some of the opinions being expressed by activists “smack of tourist-phobia”.

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“People who come here to visit and spend their money must not be criticised or insulted. We are playing with our main source of income,” Mr Clavijo said. “We have the feeling that we are not living off tourism; it is tourism that is living off us,” said Gabriel González, a councillor for the hard-Left Podemos party in Tenerife’s southern resort town of Adeje.

“The number of tourists should be reduced. We should aim for higher-quality visitors, not people in all-included resorts who don’t leave the hotel or interact with locals and our culture in any way,” said Néstor Marrero, secretary of a Tenerife ecology group called ATAN.

“Tourists are allowed to behave in ways here that they would not be allowed to at home. Do they fall drunk off balconies in London or Wales, or drive their cars where it is prohibited in a nature reserve?” the group has also asked.

Mr Marrero said that to do nothing about the situation would be the best way to “create tourist-phobia” with locals reduced to “sleeping in their cars as they cannot afford rents”.