‘British tourists will always be welcome’ says Lanzarote’s president after controversial comments

‘You are and will always be welcome here’ said Lanzarote´s president, following a statement to reduce dependence on British tourists

Lanzarote´s president Maria Dolores Corujo has announced that British tourists are always welcome after she made a controversial statement claiming that the holiday island wanted to reduce their dependence on  travellers.  

“It’s categorically false that in Lanzarote we do not want British tourism or that we want to reduce the numbers of British tourists”, said Corujo, during a statement cited by Mail Online.  

She said that “I will say it once and for all. British tourism has always, is, and will always be welcome on the island of Lanzarote”.  

This statement by the president comes after she had stated that the tourist capacity of the island had reached its limit, and the government “had to prioritise a rational and lasting development based on quality”.  

Over 50 percent of the tourists who visits Lanzarote every year consists of travellers from the UK, and Corujo had said that the island now aims to “diversification to reduce the dependence on the British market’ and welcome more ‘upmarket’ holidaymakers”.  

The administration of the island plans to do this by focusing on other tourists from France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, along with Spanish visitors from the mainland.   

But Corujo now said that travellers from the UK will “always be welcome on the island”.  

She said, “In Lanzarote we are also lucky to have an excellent long-time resident British community, a community that is sensitive to the environment and involved in caring for and defending sustainable development for our island”. 

“We share our island character with the British and that makes the existence of limits in an insular, fragile, and small territory like ours very well understood”, Corujo added.

Calling her previous comments as “false controversy fuelled by misinformation”, Corujo blamed a “media outlet owned by a hotelier with a court order to demolish one of his establishments”, for spreading it.  

“Some have taken it out of context and others have misrepresented the assessment I made about the future of the tourism sector on the island”, Corujo said. 

___________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.