Thousands of local residents in Spain’s Canary Islands have protested against mass tourism on Sunday, demanding action from authorities to curb visitor numbers and protect residents from soaring housing costs, traffic congestion and overburdened services. Marching under the banner “Canaries have a limit”, demonstrators took to the streets across the archipelago’s main islands and even spread to several mainland Spanish cities. Some protesters also voiced anxieties about the strain on local water resources due to the influx of tourists. “Tourism is very important for the Canary Islands, but we have to realise that the collapse is total,” said Juan Francisco Galindo, a hotel manager in Tenerife. His father owns a small island property on which the local administration issued an expropriation order in 2023 due to the approval of a luxury hotel complex project.
