A rental car has been pictured in Tenerife with ‘Go Home’ graffiti on it, ahead of protests this Saturday over the effects of mass tourism.
The latest act of ‘tourismophobia’ comes after slogans were plastered on walls and benches in the seaside resort of Palm Mar in the south of the island last month.
Messages left in English included: “My misery, your paradise” and “The average salary in the Canary Islands is 1,200 euros.”
Overnight, a photo of a rental car with the words ‘Go Home’ scrawled on the right side of the vehicle was published by the island’s press.
Tenerife daily El Dia said the car was owned by regional car rental company Cicar, which has more than 40 offices across the Canary Islands, and described the car as ‘another form of tourism phobia’.
A rental car has been pictured with ‘Go Home’ graffiti on it in Tenerife ahead of Saturday’s protests over the effects of mass tourism
Protests against tourism in the Canary Islands are planned this weekend
The latest anti-tourism messages come after slogans were plastered on walls and benches in the south of the island resort of Palm Mar last month (pictured)
A social media user from Tenerife, referring to foreign tourists by the colloquial Spanish word ‘guiris’, responded by claiming: ‘Cicar’s cars always come with fully comprehensive insurance.
‘I wish I could rent a car in Lanzarote with this. At least this way I’d go around the island saying, “Go home, f##king guiris.”
Another chided him, writing on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Cicar is a Canarian company that puts food on the table for Canarian workers.
These ‘go home’ people are a bunch of simpletons who don’t work or plan to work.”
A sympathizer added: ‘Whoever did this is an idiot. You don’t know if the person renting the car is a tourist or not.
‘Car rental companies rent their cars to everyone. Remember that before you do stupid things like this.”
The activists behind the April 20 protests, which will take place in Gran Canaria and Lanzarote as well as Tenerife, have quickly distanced themselves from the anti-tourist graffiti.
Last week they accused regional politicians of ‘dirty tricks’ as they accused them of tourism phobia.
Half a dozen Canarians began an indefinite hunger strike at a church in the town of La Laguna in northern Tenerife on Friday.
They are all members of a platform called Canarias Se Agota, which literally translates into English as ‘The Canary Islands are exhausted’.
Half a dozen Canarians began an indefinite hunger strike at a church in the town of La Laguna in northern Tenerife on Friday. They are all members of a platform called Canarias Se Agota, which literally translates into English as ‘The Canary Islands are Exhausted’.
Protesters hold signs reading: ‘The Canary Islands are exhausted’
Anti-tourism protesters line the streets
Anti-tourism protesters hold a sign that reads: ‘Our bodies, for our country’
The hunger strikers want authorities to paralyze two tourism projects, including the construction of a five-star hotel on one of Tenerife’s last unspoilt beaches, La Tejita.
They also want local and regional politicians to change the tourism model to protect the island from the worst excesses of mass tourism, including marine pollution, traffic congestion and a lack of cheap, affordable housing, coupled with the rise in real estate prices due to Airbnb holidays -style. let’s.
Victor Martin, a spokesman for Canarias Se Agota, which will not stop eating but is leading the protest, said: “The hunger strike is indefinite and will continue until the two macro projects we are fighting are stopped forever and the regional agreement agrees in writing to discuss a tourism moratorium with us.
“A tragedy could happen and someone could die if the government doesn’t listen.”
Alfonso Boullon, a spokesman for the organization Salvar La Tejita, which has ties to Canarias Se Agota, added just before the start of the hunger strike: “This hunger strike is intended to push for a change in the social and economic model in the Canary Islands. fundamentally affected by the tourism on which the island’s economy is based.
‘It’s not an anti-tourism protest, it’s a protest aimed at reformulating the model that got us where we are today.
‘It is a model that is completely unsustainable, it depletes resources and the environment.
‘AVERAGE SALARY IN THE CANARY ISLANDS 1,200 EURO’: The ‘average salary’ marker refers to the low wages on the island compared to rising rents, rising interest rates and the cost of living due to inflation rates
‘TOURIST, RESPECT MY COUNTRY’: Islanders are said to be angry about the increase in tourist traffic
“We want a moratorium on the number of available tourist beds so that they do not increase, and the paralysis of the Hotel La Tejita and Cuna del Alma tourist complexes as a show of commitment to a real will for change.”
Hotel La Tejita is a hotel project for more than 800 guests in the south of the island. Campaigners are trying to stop this because they say it will be built partly over protected sand dunes and public coastal areas.
Cuna del Alma, the other project that has angered activists, is a Belgian-funded initiative to build a hotel and 3,600 tourist chalets in El Puertito in the municipality of Adeje, also in southern Tenerife.
Protest groups say the project would destroy large areas of habitat for endangered and protected species.