We speak to Brits on vacation in Lanzarote for their opinions on proposals by the local government.
Sunshine, year-round warm weather, good value and friendly locals. It’s not surprising that Lanzarote continues to be popular with British tourists. Perhaps too popular as President of the Lanzarote Council, Dolores Corujo, has confirmed its plans to limit British tourists as part of a new tourism strategy. The island wants to reduce its dependence on Brits, who currently make up over half of all guest's.To achieve this, Lanzarote plans to declare itself a "tourist-saturated area" and welcome fewer tourists with greater spending power.
The local government says close to sixteen and a half million holidaymakers arrived in 2022 and this will be the "absolute ceiling" for future years. The islands government has yet to finalise the details of the proposed plans, discussions have taken place among residents, business owners, and ecologists. They all agreed that the island is saturated and something needed to be done. Lanzarote isn't the only tourist hotspot in Spain that plans to reduce its reliance on Brits. The Balearic Islands, including Majorca, Menorca, and Ibiza, have also asked for fewer Brits to visit. The plans are not popular with everyone with many locals being very vocal in their opposition.
The move to limit British tourists is part of a broader strategy to diversify the islands' tourism industry and attract visitors from other countries. While this may cause some short-term pain for businesses that rely heavily on British visitors, it is hoped that it will ultimately benefit the local economy by attracting visitors with greater spending power. The plans, however, could face some strong opposition with the director for the Spanish Tourist Office in the UK, who has insisted that Spain would not "discriminate by type of visitor". The announcement has also spurred other countries such as France and Portugal to release statements reminding Brits that they and their spending power are still more than welcome.
