The Canary Islands have taken a fresh step in the debate over responsible holidays, local coexistence and the future of tourism by joining the national Turismo Que Suma movement and presenting the Aqui Se Vive campaign in the archipelago.
The move, announced on 20 July 2026 by the Canary Islands Government together with Exceltur, the Association of Tourist Municipalities of the Canary Islands and representatives of the island tourism sector, is not a new visitor tax, a travel restriction or a rule that changes how people book holidays. Its importance is subtler but highly relevant for anyone following Canary Islands tourism: the destination is trying to shape the next stage of its tourism model around value, respect, transparency and a clearer relationship between visitors and the communities that host them.
Aqui Se Vive, which translates naturally as Here People Live, is aimed mainly at visitors. Its message is that the places tourists enjoy on holiday are also everyday living spaces for residents, workers, families and local businesses. The campaign asks for more conscious behaviour in destinations where beaches, promenades, historic quarters, natural areas, roads, apartment buildings and resort services are shared by residents and guests.
For holidaymakers, the immediate takeaway is simple: normal holidays continue, but the official tone around tourism in the Canary Islands is becoming more direct. Visitors are being invited to enjoy the islands while recognising that the archipelago is not only a leisure product. It is a lived-in territory where water, energy, housing, public spaces, employment quality, local suppliers and environmental care are all part of the holiday experience.
A fresh tourism story with a clear visitor angle
The Canary Islands have spent the past few years trying to move the tourism conversation away from a narrow count of arrivals and toward a broader question: what kind of tourism leaves the greatest value in the islands? This latest step fits that pattern. Turismo Que Suma, promoted by Exceltur, brings together public administrations, destinations, companies and tourism associations that want a more balanced model, one that generates benefits for visitors, residents and the wider local economy.
The Canary Islands' adhesion is especially relevant because the archipelago is one of Europe's most recognisable year-round holiday destinations. Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro all depend on tourism in different ways, but they also face different pressures. Large resort zones manage high visitor flows, smaller islands work to attract higher-value niche tourism, and municipalities across the region are trying to protect quality of life while keeping the visitor economy strong.
The regional government presented the move as part of a wider strategy to explain the value of tourism to residents and to encourage the sector to demonstrate that value with concrete practices. That matters because public attitudes to tourism are increasingly important for destination competitiveness. A holiday destination can have excellent beaches, hotels and air links, but if residents feel excluded from the benefits or overwhelmed by the pressures, the visitor experience also suffers.
The campaign therefore speaks to both sides of the tourism relationship. For residents, it argues that tourism supports jobs, services, economic activity and local suppliers. For visitors, it asks for respect toward the places and people that make a Canary Islands holiday possible.
What Aqui Se Vive means for visitors
Aqui Se Vive is not an enforcement measure. It does not introduce fines, capacity limits, booking permits or new accommodation rules. Instead, it is a communication campaign designed to influence behaviour and expectations. Visitors may see its messages through physical and digital supports, especially in tourist areas and through channels connected with the sector.
The visitor message is likely to feel familiar to anyone who has followed responsible travel campaigns in mature destinations: respect local life, support the local economy, avoid treating residential spaces as theme parks, use natural resources carefully, and remember that popular beaches, viewpoints and town centres are not empty backdrops. The difference in the Canary Islands is the scale of the tourism economy and the year-round nature of demand. This is not a short peak-season issue. It is a permanent destination-management question.
For tourists staying in hotels, apartments, villas or rural accommodation, the practical implications are modest but meaningful. Use water sensibly, follow local signs in protected areas, avoid removing stones or shells from beaches and natural spaces, respect quiet hours in residential buildings, keep to marked trails, choose licensed activities, and spend with local businesses where possible. None of this makes a holiday less enjoyable. In many cases, it makes the trip better because it pushes visitors toward more authentic food, guided experiences, markets, cultural venues and locally rooted excursions.
The campaign also gives hotels, holiday rental managers, excursion companies and destination guides a clearer framework for guest communication. Instead of treating responsible behaviour as a list of warnings, tourism businesses can present it as part of the Canary Islands experience: a way to enjoy the islands with more awareness and leave more value behind.
Why the Canary Islands are putting coexistence at the centre
The Canary Islands are not trying to step away from tourism. The official numbers underline the opposite. Tourism remains the main engine of the regional economy, and the government has highlighted that the sector has generated a major share of economic growth since 2019. It has also pointed to a tourism GDP of 23.375 billion euros in 2025, equivalent to 37.7% of the regional economy, and 413,064 people in employment linked to tourism, representing 42.3% of total employment in the islands.
Those figures explain why the discussion is not about whether tourism matters. It plainly does. The issue is how to keep that engine working without weakening the very qualities that attract visitors in the first place: landscapes, beaches, mild weather, safety, hospitality, distinctive island culture, gastronomy, walking routes, marine activities, small towns and a sense of daily life that differs from mainland resort destinations.
Coexistence has become one of the most important words in Spanish tourism policy because the most successful destinations are also the ones where pressure is easiest to see. In the Canary Islands, that pressure can appear in different forms. In resort municipalities it may involve mobility, public services, waste, water use or the balance between visitor accommodation and residential life. In natural areas it may involve trail use, fragile volcanic landscapes, coastal access, car parking, waste and safety. In cities such as Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or Santa Cruz de Tenerife, it may involve the relationship between cruise passengers, short breaks, local commerce and neighbourhood life.
Aqui Se Vive is therefore not just a slogan. It is a sign that the islands want visitors to understand the destination as a shared place. That is likely to become increasingly important as travellers look for more local experiences and as residents expect tourism to show clearer social returns.
A campaign connected to a wider strategy
The July announcement did not arrive in isolation. The Canary Islands Government has been developing several communication and education actions around tourism, sustainability and public understanding of the sector. These include short video projects about the destination the islands want to become, social media content explaining tourism's economic and social role, campaigns connected with the Canary Islands Destination 2025-2027 strategic plan, and public communication around the future regulation of holiday rentals.
The regional tourism department has also used more creative campaigns to reposition the islands around sustainability, environmental care, community respect and the idea that not every type of visitor behaviour fits the destination. A new corporate web section explaining tourism in the Canary Islands has been added as a permanent information space, while tourism conventions have created forums for discussing strategy with the sector and society.
Against that background, joining Turismo Que Suma gives the Canary Islands a national platform and a broader set of examples. The movement brings together more than one hundred good-practice cases covering areas such as natural heritage protection, local supplier support, better employment, water and energy efficiency, waste reduction, destination regeneration, tourism-flow management, modernisation of the offer and the fight against illegal activity.
For the Canary Islands, those themes map directly onto the most visible debates in the archipelago. The islands need profitable hotels and apartments, reliable air and sea connectivity, strong restaurants and activity operators, and a positive investment climate. They also need local confidence that tourism is not simply extracting value from beaches, landscapes and public infrastructure. Turismo Que Suma gives the sector a language for explaining that better, but the real test will be whether visitors and residents notice practical improvements.
Ashotel and tourism businesses add weight to the message
The involvement of tourism businesses is important because coexistence cannot be delivered by government slogans alone. Ashotel, the hotel and non-hotel accommodation association representing Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, has also joined Turismo Que Suma and is backing Aqui Se Vive in the Canary Islands. Its participation gives the campaign a stronger route into accommodation providers and the wider visitor economy.
That matters for practical reasons. Hotels, apartment operators and holiday-rental managers are often the first point of contact for visitors after arrival. They can explain local expectations around water use, waste, balcony behaviour, noise, protected areas, car parking, beach safety and respectful interaction with residents. Excursion companies can reinforce the same principles when taking guests to volcanoes, forests, coastal sites, villages, marinas or viewpoints. Restaurants and local shops can benefit when visitors understand that spending locally is one of the easiest ways to make tourism more valuable.
The campaign also gives businesses a way to answer one of the most sensitive questions in modern Canary Islands tourism: how can the islands welcome millions of visitors while responding to public concern about pressure on housing, resources and public space? The answer cannot be reduced to one poster campaign. But communication is part of the solution, especially when it is paired with investment, regulation, better data and clearer examples of positive local impact.
What changes and what does not change
| Area | What visitors should know |
|---|---|
| Holiday bookings | The campaign does not change flight, hotel, apartment or package-holiday bookings. |
| Visitor rules | No new entry rule, tourist tax, permit system or island-wide visitor limit has been announced as part of this move. |
| Destination message | Visitors are being asked to treat the islands as lived-in communities, not only as holiday spaces. |
| Tourism businesses | Hotels, accommodation managers and activity providers are expected to help communicate responsible behaviour and local value. |
| Long-term impact | The measure supports a wider shift toward higher-value, more responsible and better explained tourism in the Canary Islands. |
For travellers, the most important point is that this is a soft but significant change in tone. The Canary Islands are not telling visitors to stay away. They are telling visitors to come with better awareness. That distinction is essential for a destination whose economy, employment and international identity are deeply linked to holidays.
The campaign may also help visitors interpret messages they already encounter across the islands. Signs asking people to stay on marked paths, avoid taking volcanic stones, use water carefully, respect residents in apartment buildings or follow beach safety flags are not random local irritations. They are part of a larger attempt to protect the experience that tourists themselves came to enjoy.
Why this matters for Canary Islands holidays
Many travellers now choose the Canary Islands for more than sunshine. Beaches and winter warmth remain central, but the visitor mix increasingly includes hiking, cycling, gastronomy, surf, wind sports, diving, stargazing, wellness, remote work, city breaks, festivals, local food and multi-island trips. These forms of tourism depend heavily on local identity and environmental quality.
A walking holiday in La Gomera relies on maintained trails, protected landscapes and respectful use of rural spaces. A stargazing trip to La Palma or El Hierro relies on dark skies and low-impact visitor behaviour. A food-focused stay in Lanzarote or Gran Canaria gains value when travellers seek out local producers, markets and restaurants rather than staying entirely inside an anonymous resort bubble. A beach holiday in Fuerteventura or Tenerife works best when coastal areas remain clean, safe and shared without tension.
That is why responsible tourism is not just a moral message. It is a product-quality issue. If natural sites are degraded, if residents become hostile to visitor pressure, if illegal supply damages confidence, or if public spaces feel overloaded, the holiday experience worsens. Conversely, when visitors understand local expectations and businesses help them make better choices, the destination can protect both its appeal and its social licence.
A more mature tourism conversation
The launch of Aqui Se Vive comes at a time when many Spanish and European destinations are rethinking how they talk about tourism. The old language of success focused heavily on arrivals, overnight stays and occupancy. Those indicators still matter, especially for airlines, hotels, restaurants, transfer firms and public revenue. But they no longer tell the whole story.
The Canary Islands' current direction is toward a more mature conversation: how much value does tourism generate, where does that value go, how does it improve local life, and what must visitors, companies and administrations do to protect the destination? Turismo Que Suma gives that conversation a public frame. Aqui Se Vive translates it into a simple message that a visitor can understand in a resort street, on a screen, in a hotel lobby or during a transfer.
The phrase works because it is direct. It does not accuse travellers, but it does remind them that the places they photograph, rent, visit, drive through and celebrate in are home to someone else. In an archipelago where tourism is both a source of prosperity and a source of pressure, that reminder is likely to become part of the everyday language of holidays.
What visitors can do now
Visitors do not need to change their travel plans because of this campaign. Flights, ferries, hotels, resorts, beaches, excursions and attractions continue as normal. The useful response is to travel with a little more attention.
Choose licensed accommodation and activities. Follow local signs in protected areas. Keep to marked trails. Avoid taking natural materials from beaches or volcanic landscapes. Use water and energy sensibly, especially in accommodation. Respect quiet hours and shared residential spaces. Support local restaurants, shops, guides and producers. Plan transport so that resort roads, parking areas and natural sites are used more thoughtfully. Treat local fiestas, villages and neighbourhoods as living places rather than stages.
These are small decisions, but they add up across a destination that receives visitors throughout the year. They also make holidays richer. The traveller who understands local life usually finds better food, better conversations, better routes and a deeper sense of place.
The bottom line
The Canary Islands' decision to join Turismo Que Suma and launch Aqui Se Vive is a fresh signal about where the destination wants to go. It is not a restriction on tourists and it is not a warning against holidays. It is a public attempt to strengthen coexistence, make tourism's benefits more visible and ask visitors to recognise that the archipelago is a home as well as a holiday destination.
For FlyToCanarias readers, the story is worth watching because it connects several of the biggest themes shaping future holidays in the islands: responsible visitor behaviour, tourism's contribution to local life, sustainable destination management, hotel and business communication, and the growing expectation that successful destinations must be good places to live as well as good places to visit.
The message for travellers is reassuring but clear. The Canary Islands remain open, connected and ready for holidays. The islands are simply asking visitors to enjoy them with the respect that keeps them special.