Canary Islands a Sustainable Tourist Destination

CANARY ISLANDS A SUSTAINABLE TOURIST DESTINATION The archipelago of the Canary Islands is a prime example of an island territory that is both heavily reliant on tourism and susceptible to the negative effects of uncontrolled tourism growth. The short-term profitability bolstered by increasing demand has drove and continues to lead the expansion of tourism activities in the Canary Islands. Buildings have multiplied and continue to multiplie without regard to any criteria other than financial gain. The overuse of natural resources (water, sea, and energy), the strain on physical space (the limited land supply), societal saturation, and other issues appear to be unseen realities. It is true that this style of tourism growth was typical when the Canary Islands started to attract tourists in the 1960s. However, after more than thirty years, we have firsthand experience with its effects, both good and bad, so I believe we are in a position to carefully consider the course that our primary source of income should follow. The nature of tourism is dynamic, complicated, and influenced by a wide range of elements, including psychological and economic ones. Tourist locations need to expand their offerings and adjust to new developments in order to stay appealing and avoid going through a crisis or decline. This is because traveler tastes are always changing. Six Canary Islands must change to meet the needs of modern tourists. As seen by the 12 million visitors that come here each year, planning, designing, and legislating appear to be the keys to the future of tourism and, by extension, our economic, social, and cultural realities. The main goal of the present, contentious Canary Islands tourism management ouidolines is to nian device. and enact laws that promote the sustainnhilitu of tourism7 on the islands. The paper is beneficial because it has sparked a meaningful conversation about the future of tourism in our area. The substance is contentious now. We will just consider the broad strokes of the recommendations for tourist management in the Canary Islands; we do not want to argue over specifics. Many of the requirements (less verticality of the tourism industry, reference to other productive sectors, agriculture and fishing and measures to avoid its total abandonment, education and training of professionals in the tourism sector and the population in general with issues related to tourism, and specifically with the demands of sustainable tourism do not appear in the guidelines, if we apply the requirements that a sustainable tourism development model must meet (Table 1). The guidelines, which only address the idea of a new model for tourism development, the renewal of the current offer, and the enhancement of the destination's competitiveness through product diversification and quality enhancement (guideline No. S), do not address the issue of what to do with the large number of tourists-12 million annually-who come here primarily seeking sun, beach, fun, and low prices. It is vital to diversify our tourism offer by adding items like golf courses, conference travel, and rural tourism-all of which are considered to be high-quality travel-while keeping in mind that they are always complimentary offers rather than replacements for our present model of tourism growth (Santana, 1997). Additionally, many of the areas where these new tourism offerings-which have emerged as "flagbearers of sustainability" -also suffer from their negative effects. Nothing that tourists do is safe.& Maybe the focus should be on making mass tourism more cuctainablo rathor than an Audina a now modol of cuctainablo touriem development (Butler, 1999). One way to do this is to seriously limit the number of tourist beds, which is the main issue raised by the guidelines and which is still open for business. Lastly, keep in mind that a common mistake in tourist recommendations is that they exclusively consider and provide quantitative data and solutions (even though some of those categories, like carrying capacity, are meant to be quantitative but are actually just as ambiguous as the idea of human needs). Data and surveys alone will not suffice to approach and comprehend the complicated and all-encompassing phenomena that is tourist activity. These facts require a context and an alternative perspective on the tourist phenomena, which fields like anthropology may provide. It is from these perspectives that I attempt to study tourism. In addition to being a previous exercise that I believe has not been completed, taking these kinds of contributions into consideration is necessary to develop a tourism development model for the Canary Islands. This involves addressing, from an interdisciplinary study, the characteristics and impacts of tourism in the Canary Islands, island by island and area by area.