Rallying under the slogan "The Canary Islands have a limit", demonstrators began marching at midday in tourist hotspots across all of the archipelago's seven main islands. Waving white, blue and yellow flags of the Canary Islands, chanting and whistling protesters slow-marched by tourists sitting in outdoor terraces in Playa de las America before they rallied on the beach. "This beach is ours," they chanted.
The demonstration followed large protests held in April in town squares across the archipelago against a model of mass tourism critics say favours investors at the expense of the environment, and that prices local residents out of housing and forces them into precarious jobs.
Holding placards reading "The Canaries are not for sale" and "Enough is enough", demonstrators called for limits on tourist numbers, a crackdown on holiday apartments and curbs on what they describe as uncontrolled development.
Some tourists cheered the demonstrators as they went by. "The coastline is being damaged by so much construction. I totally agree with them," said Rosalia Magalilo, a 55-year-old tourist from Switzerland who said she had been coming to Gran Canaria for 30 years.
Anti-tourism protests have multiplied in recent months across Spain, the world's second-most visited country after France.
ADVERTISEMENT
