Time for a new path? The future of tourism on La Palma

A critical moment for La Palma

With just over a year to go until the next elections (May 2027), Coalición Canaria (CC), from the island’s Cabildo, has opened a debate on tourism in La Palma and the future direction of the economic model favoured by the three established parties (the PP and PSOE are also involved). I believe the time has come to reflect and offer some alternatives – in other words, to dissent clearly and, I hope, with reasoned arguments. A different tourism strategy is not only possible, but necessary for our island of La Palma.

La Palma is facing a decision that will shape its future for decades. While the Canary Islands’ tourism model shows clear signs of exhaustion – record visitor numbers coexisting with stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, and public services stretched to breaking point – La Palma is attempting to replicate that very same ailing model. The question is not whether the island should bet on tourism, but what kind of tourism we want, and for whom. What is at stake is far more than an economic sector: it is our way of life, our landscape, and the future of those of us who live here.

Sixty years of failed planning

The first Insular Territorial Planning Plan for La Palma, drawn up in 1974, established the two main tourist hubs that remain dominant today: Los Cancajos and Puerto Naos, both conceived under the sun-and-beach paradigm. Little has happened since. Subsequent island, partial and special plans failed to achieve their objectives. The Special Territorial Tourism Plan (PTET, 2011), after three partial approvals between 2007 and 2010, was never implemented. The current regulatory framework is the Green Islands Law (Ley de las Islas Verdes), in its 2019 version. It is structured around the Insular Tourist Motricity System (SMTI), integrated into the third revision of the Insular Plan (R3PIOLP), which enables Structural Actions of Insular Significance (AETI) through Singular Tourism Planning Instruments (IPST), which we will discuss later. The result: sixty years of fruitless planning and a marginal sector whose maximum contribution to total Canary Islands tourism was 2.8% in 2017.

The failure to implement what was planned is usually attributed to structural causes such as weak investment, fragmented land ownership, a shortage of beaches, and limited air connectivity. What is clear is that it has not been for lack of plans. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which sixty years ago were in an even more marginal position than La Palma, have developed a powerful tourism industry. Today, together they account for 35% of all overnight stays in the Canary Islands. La Palma does not reach 2%.

The model is running out of steam

But this is a model that is beginning to run out of steam. It only works as long as no one can do it cheaper, and when someone manages to do so, we could be lost. New destinations, especially closer ones like Morocco and other countries in the eastern Mediterranean, are beginning to challenge that model. And not just that of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, but of the entire Canary Islands. The response based on greater volume is a mistaken premise, and the reality is becoming very uncomfortable: record visitor numbers with excessive consumption of land and resources, wages that do not rise, unaffordable housing, strained public services, and a constant leakage of value. A good portion of the money that comes in leaves just as quickly: only between 30% and 40% of tourist spending stays in the islands. This means greater economic dependence and more inequality. The model does not work for the island.

It is necessary to rethink how we measure tourism success. The focus should be on the positive impacts that the activity can and should generate in the destination: its effectiveness in generating livelihoods, its contribution to the local economy, the creation of decent employment, and respect for the environment and natural balances – without displacing those who live here or degrading what makes us unique. Tourism in service of the island and its people.

La Palma’s real assets: a unique tourist profile

The main motivation for those who come to La Palma is to explore and get to know the island. They value the landscapes, the tranquillity and the absence of overcrowding; they show a high environmental awareness and a willingness to pay compensation taxes, and they report satisfaction levels above the Canary Islands average. This is a high-value tourist, one who improves unit income and, therefore, productivity per employee. La Palma possesses a set of tourist assets with no equivalent in the European and global markets for differentiated destinations: a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve covering the entire island territory, the Roque de los Muchachos (one of the best locations on the planet for astronomy, protected by La Palma’s Sky Law), the volcanic geoheritage of Tajogaite, the laurel forests (relics of Tertiary-era European flora), the seabeds, and so much more.

La Palma cannot and must not compete in mass sun-and-beach tourism. The correct strategy is radical differentiation in high-value niches: scientific, ecological, cultural and gastronomic, compatible with our natural and cultural heritage and capable of generating greater added value per visitor with a lower impact. The combination of volcano, sky and biosphere is the most powerful draw for visitor experiences: astro-tourism and geo-tourism, volcanic geoheritage, unique agricultural landscapes, Atlantic architecture, the sea, regenerative tourism, slow tourism. All of this is compatible with our territory and our way of life, which are our most valuable differentiating assets and, paradoxically, the most underutilised in the current strategy.

Improving the quantity and quality of accommodation must be linked to the full and operational activation of built heritage: manor houses, historic complexes, haciendas and vernacular buildings, along with new boutique or landmark hotels. Holiday rentals should be intelligently regulated so that value is distributed locally without putting pressure on the residential housing market. The aim is to improve the multiplier effects of tourism on the rest of the island’s economy: gastronomy, crafts, transport, cultural services. The tourist who comes to La Palma should spend their money in La Palma; they should generate income, wealth and prosperity for the people of La Palma.

Added to this is the need to improve the quality of tourism employment through specific training, stable contracts and retention of local talent. Quality tourism requires quality professionals, and a great deal of language teaching. But there is more: improving connectivity, not just with more seats available on direct international routes, but also through better connections with Tenerife South Airport and Gran Canaria. The bargaining power with airlines is considerably greater for a differentiated, high-demand, high-value destination than for one that is easily replicated and replaced in such a competitive market. The destination also needs participatory governance instruments capable of coordinating and implementing a transformation plan, as well as a marketing and commercialisation plan.

The ‘Pact for Tourism’ and its controversial projects

Far from analysing the data and trends in the sector and assessing the opportunity to change strategy, La Palma’s political parties (CC, PSOE and PP) signed an agreement in 2023 to promote tourism infrastructure and support the creation of new beds under the old, stagnant model. The Pact for Tourism in La Palma (Pacto por el Turismo en La Palma) is widely rejected by the island’s society. It promotes speculative models, the installation of oversized, extractive hotel chains and unaffordable ancillary infrastructure, such as golf courses. It consumes a great deal of landscape, territory and resources – which belong to everyone – only to benefit a few.

To this end, La Palma already has three authorised IPSTs: the Ecoresort La Pavona (Las Breñas), with 1,400 beds, a project initially linked to a golf course; La Dichosa Wellness (Las Manchas), with 564 beds; and the Llano de las Ánimas Astronomical-Cultural Park. Under processing are Puerto Naos (2,604 places), Golf Fuencaliente (1,024 places) and Las Hoyas-Tazacorte (900 places). In the drawers of architecture firms, many others are about to see the light of day, such as the Bioclimatic Residential Complex at Roque del Faro (Garafía) or the Tourist-Residential and Leisure Complex at La Fajana de Barlovento, with a hotel, intertidal pools, a sea club, caravanning, pergola-covered areas for panoramic sun decks and beach kiosks. All of this is in the purest sun-and-beach resort style, no matter how many adjectives like “eco”, “bio” or “sustainable” are attached to them. This is precisely the opposite of the stated goal of the Green Islands Law, which was supposedly born to change the strategy and make landscape and heritage the main tourism resource, not to encourage predatory turbo-growth.

Certain moves are, at the very least, suspicious in their timing. The Cabildo of La Palma’s Environmental Assessment Commission approved the start of the file for the Puerto Naos IPST on 30 April this year. In the Cabildo plenary session on 9 April 2026, barely three weeks earlier, the members of that same Commission were dismissed and new ones appointed simultaneously. Not unconnected to this territorial operation is the El Remo-La Zamora tunnel project: 5.5 kilometres of highly complex engineering with a significant environmental impact, initially budgeted at a staggering €328 million of public money, and designed solely to flood the south-west coast of La Palma (El Remo, Puerto Naos, Las Hoyas, Tazacorte) with as many tourists as possible.

Two opposing visions for the future

The promoters of this anachronistic development, primarily the Coalición Canaria government group on the Cabildo of La Palma – where the party holds an absolute majority – have reacted swiftly against those of us who have dared to point out that continuing with this tourism strategy is, for all the reasons set out above, a serious mistake for the island. The People’s Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), signatories of the Pact for Tourism in La Palma, remain silent. We understand that they acquiesce.

They try to offer public opinion a deliberately polarised scenario: them, the good guys, who generate the economy, attract investment and create jobs; and us, the bad guys, who are against everything and want nothing good for La Palma. They have made a big show in the media and on social networks. But this narrative lacks credibility, and opposition on the streets is widespread. And they know it full well. Hence the insistence on propaganda paid for with public money.

What is facing La Palma are two models. One, bogged down and in recession, already implemented in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura: the sun-and-beach, extractive hotel model, with low wages, which, far from bringing prosperity for all, is destroying everyday life. Neighbourhoods and villages turned into something unrecognisable, theme parks, and residents forced to leave because they cannot afford rents driven up by tourism speculation. Workers getting up at five in the morning to cross the island and serve breakfasts in five-star hotels, but unable to afford to live near their workplace. Queues at health centres, gridlocked roads, overwhelmed public services.

This is not about being against tourism. It is about being sensible and not accepting a dependence imposed by outside interests. It is about a tourism model that serves the island and its people, not the other way around. A tourism that generates decent, stable employment, that brings real value to the local economy and distributes its benefits fairly. We believe in sustainable and intelligent tourism, one that respects the territory’s carrying capacity and thereby protects the landscape. The preservation of the environment is the foundation of an authentic and lasting tourism experience. A tourism that invites people to live in La Palma, not just to visit it. We cannot allow decisions to be taken behind the backs of the people of La Palma. It is time to act with responsibility and courage. We still have time.

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