Member-only story
Lanzarote blog — day three, being a tourist
How do you do anything that either you (I) or the people who live here want, or are interested in, or willing to do, to improve life on Lanzarote?
The first thought is, Don’t Be A Tourist! There is definitely overtourism here. And although it gets covered up very quickly, and the ‘business as usual’, and ‘we love tourists!’ slogans are bandied about on the media and in the windows of bars and restaurants, the fact is, there is a serious problem with tourism. Here, and everywhere. And I, yes, I am a tourist here. Which is just a difficult thing to swallow. How do you do anything to improve life on Lanzarote for the people, the species, for yourself, if life on Lanzarote is dramatically disimproved by the sheer scale of its dependency on tourism?
But not all tourism is the same. And this, unfortunately, is true. Unfortunately because at the end of the spectrum where tourism does the most harm is in the all-in package deal that many people who cannot afford to do otherwise choose, because they know what they’ll get, what to expect, how much they’ve spent, and because they’re conservative, generally with a small ‘c’, and don’t want to explore a place they might only be in for a week. They want the hotel, the pool, the all in food and booze, the kids’ club, the entertainment. Maybe, if it becomes a regular visit, they venture out into Playa Blanca…
