'The Canary Islands have a limit': Latest anti-tourist graffiti appears beneath ... trends now
Tourists heading for Tenerife's iconic Teide volcano have been met with graffiti telling them the Canary Islands are saturated with holidaymakers after an official told Britons looking for cheap holidays to go elsewhere.
Protestors who took to the streets in the Atlantic archipelago on Saturday did so under the slogan: 'Canarias tiene un limite', which in English translates as 'The Canary Islands have a limit.'
Yesterday morning the same words appeared painted in white on the tarmac of one of the access roads to the 12,188ft Mount Teide, the highest point in Spain and a must-see tourist attraction in Tenerife.
Another message painted on the road said: 'Moratoria turistica' - 'Tourist moratorium' in English.
Carlos Tarife, deputy mayor for the island capital Santa Cruz, said Brits looking for cheap all-inclusive sunshine breaks should go elsewhere for their holidays as the island looks for 'greater quality' tourists who will appreciate 'our famous Canary Island potatoes'.
He said holidaymakers interested in staying in their hotels with their mandatory wristbands on should book places like the Dominican Republic instead.
Protestors who took to the streets in the Atlantic archipelago on Saturday did so under the slogan: 'Canarias tiene un limite', which in English translates as 'The Canary Islands have a limit.' The same words were written on a road leading to the Teide volcano (pictured)
Yesterday morning the same words appeared painted in white on the tarmac of one of the access roads to the 12,188ft Mount Teide, the highest point in Spain and a must-see tourist attraction in Tenerife. The graffiti has since been removed (pictured)
Carlos Tarife, deputy mayor for the island capital Santa Cruz (centre) urged holidaymaking Brits to look at places such as the Dominican Republic for sunny breaks instead of Tenerife
In an interview on a Tenerife radio station on Tuesday, Mr Tarife who is also Head of Public Services and the Environment for Santa Cruz Council, said when explaining why he was against a tourist moratorium: 'In the Canary Islands we have less hotel beds today than five or six years ago.
'That's go to do amongst other things with the fact that in the Canaries, and I'm referring especially to Tenerife and southern Tenerife in particular, a model of four-star hotels is changing to one of five-star and five-star plus hotels.
'Where there were hotels with 250 beds, there's now hotels with less beds but greater quality.
'I think that is the type of tourism we need here, not the type of tourism with all-inclusive wristbands where holidaymakers stay inside the hotel and do everything in the hotel.
'For that I think there are destinations like the Dominican Republic and other places.'
Following the new anti-tourist graffiti appearing on the island yesterday, Tenerife council's vice-president Lope Afonso described it as vandalism in an angry message on X, formerly Twitter, ahead of a botched-clean up which led to the graffiti being removed although today it was still visible and readable.
He said: 'The Canary Islands might have a limit, but this exceeds it. Grievances and demands cannot be
