Canary Islands  resident of twenty years says protests against tourism have been overblown by the British Press - video Dailymotion

Dave Gainford runs successful travel and trips company www.travelonworld.com and has lived in the Canary Islands for twenty years.

Transcript

00:00There was two news reports that came out from the UK press, and I must stress that I asked

00:06people on the mainland of Spain as well, and German people, and Dutch people, and people

00:11from Sweden, if they're getting the same reports, and nobody had heard anything.

00:17But the UK press were, first of all, they did a report saying that tourists are not

00:24welcome.

00:25That was the first report.

00:26That's how it all started.

00:27It was more in Tenerife.

00:28There was a few signs that went up in Tenerife.

00:31Despite living in the Canaries for around 20 years, Dave still describes himself as

00:36a visitor.

00:37He now runs a trips and tour company, and additionally, his social media accounts, travelon.world,

00:44provide a friendly guide to the island, and have been viewed by millions of people.

00:49Rather than just sort of sit back, because it did sort of anger me a little bit, I thought

00:53I'd go out and ask local people, and ask sort of local business owners.

00:59I tried to keep it very broad, and try and find people that tourism didn't affect in

01:05any way.

01:06But I really did struggle to find any sort of person that sort of lives and works on

01:12the island, that in some way doesn't benefit from tourism.

01:17While there have been complaints about the number of hotels being built on the island,

01:21the biggest issue that Dave found was lack of housing for locals, with many Spanish struggling

01:28to get on the property ladder.

01:30The government at the moment are setting rules in place.

01:32I believe that if you buy a new house now, you can't rent it out as a holiday home for

01:36at least 10 years.

01:38And I may be wrong on this, this is just information that I've heard.

01:42There are some new sort of smaller complexes being built, which are only available to locals

01:49to buy, and are only available to those that do not have a house.

01:54They definitely certainly want British people here, but I don't think they want your typical

01:58sort of Brits abroad.