The prospect of a tax on tourism in Tenerife may have moved a step closer with a formal proposal by the head of the island’s governing council.
Rosa Dávila, president of the Tenerife Cabildo, has set the ball rolling with a motion to have the introduction of a tax tabled for approval at this weekend’s congress of her Canarian Coalition party, which is the senior partner in the island government.
The tax would be levied on all tourists staying overnight in hotels and other forms of holiday accommodation on the island and would raise money to fund sustainability measures and climate change projects. However, exemptions are believed to be envisaged for residents, children and people travelling for work or medical appointments.
News of the proposal has already sparked major opposition, not least from the influential Ashotel hoteliers’ association, which described it as “a populist measure” and said that any problems posed by tourism in Tenerife should be resolved through better planning and management, not by imposing financial levies on visitors.
Also against are the Canarian Coalition’s partners in the Cabildo, the centre-right Popular Party, which has repeatedly manifested its opposition to any form of tourist tax and is expected to make the issue a red line that could trigger political instability not just in the Cabildo, if it withdraws its support for Dávila over the tax, but also in the regional government, where the two parties are also partners.
The island-wide tax proposal is separate to the somewhat less controversial specific levy the Cabildo plans to introduce next year for visitors to Tenerife’s Teide National Park to offset the impact of the massive numbers who visit the environmentally sensitive area every day.
The announcement by Dávila marks a surprising about-turn in the traditional stance taken by her party, which has voted against a tourist tax on many occasions. However, the Cabildo president says she has “listened to society”, a reference to the growing swell of people opposed to mass tourism in both Tenerife and the wider Canaries. Critics also see the announcement as a late attempt to appease the protesters ahead of the mass demonstrations scheduled for 18 May across the islands.
