Anti-tourism protesters branded ‘d***heads’ by livid Tenerife locals

Protestors who stormed a Tenerife beach and surrounded holidaymakers in their swimwear during an anti-mass tourism demo were branded ‘d***heads’ today as anger over their actions grew.

Astonishing pictures emerged yesterday afternoon of nonplussed foreigners being circled by flag-waving locals yelling: ‘This beach is ours’ and banging drums and blowing whistles.

The surreal scenes occurred after hundreds of protestors diverted from their planned seafront route in Playa de las Americas in Tenerife and ended up taking over Troya Beach shortly after midday.

One couple ended up trapped on their beach towels after protestors made a beeline for them on the sand carrying a banner which appeared to say ‘Jediondos’ which is Spanish slang for ‘foul-smelling.’

There were reports of hundreds of demonstrators jeering holidaymakers on neighbouring Gran Canaria, one of six islands in the Atlantic archipelago where the co-ordinated anti-mass tourism protests were held yesterday six months after the last ones in the island capitals.

The turnout this time round was down on the April 20 ones and the feeling was growing today that protestors had shot themselves in the foot with some of their actions despite earlier promises tourists would not be targeted.

Canary islander Veronica Quintero said of the Tenerife beach revolt: ‘What they did was a d***head thing to do.

‘We have to fight for quality tourism but not against those who come here.’

‘We shouldn’t f*** the tourist who is on the beach because they have paid for an offer.’

Another local raged: ‘I don’t understand, countries competing, innovating to get money in the form of tourist investment or whatever because things are getting tough and these ignorant people with good telephones, well-fed thanks to the investments that have been made on this island.’

Ayoze Vera, referring to the placard appearing to allude to tourists equating to ‘smelly people’ said: “I’ll stick with the ‘jediondos” poster image.

‘There we realise what kind of people go to these things.’

Activist Daniel Cabrera, who was on the march and sought to defend the beach action, insisted overnight: ‘One of the reasons people went onto the beach is because it’s one of the most polluted and it’s right next to all the hotels and businesses in the area.

‘We want tourism, what we do not want is over-exploitation and garbage tourism that does not benefit the local economy.

‘Seventy-five per cent of the money from island hotels and other businesses ends up outside of Spain and that can’t be tolerated.’

Initial reports put the number of protesters who joined the Tenerife march at around 2,000 people, although government officials later said they estimated some 6,500 had taken part with organisers putting the figure even higher.

Hundreds stormed Troya Beach after leaving the Metropolis shopping centre start-point at midday local time.

Locals were heard shouting ‘No hay camas pa’ tanto guiri’ – which in English would translate as: ‘There’s not enough beds for so many foreigners.’

One woman was carrying a cardboard poster which said in badly-spelt English: ‘Tourists, go f***ing home.’

Other posters borne by protestors said: ‘Enjoying a day at your pool? That water could be going on food’ as well as ‘Macrotourism destroys Canary Islands’ and ‘The Canaries have a limit. More trees, less hotels.’

Another in Spanish said: ‘The Canaries Don’t Live off Tourism. Tourism lives off the Canaries.’

The focus of the protest in Gran Canaria was also a popular holiday resort – Maspalomas in the south of the island where most of the hotels British tourists stay at are based.

Some demonstrators walked behind a large banner which said in Spanish: ‘We’re foreigners in our own land.’

Tourists watched on from hotel rooftops as the protestors walked past them, with reports a small handful of locals had taken the opportunity to stick their middle fingers up at holidaymakers and others to jeer them, prompting the visitors to blew kisses back at them.

One protestor was filmed being put into handcuffs for what was described as a minor offence as onlookers taking part in the march shouted at officers surrounding him. There were no reports of any other arrests.

Yesterday’s Canary Island protests took place under the motto: ‘The Canaries Have A Limit.’

Organisers said before they started their regional and island governors had been guilty of ‘complete inaction’ over the past six months since the last demos.

They say the number of tourists the islands attract, 16 million last year with 17 million expected to visit the region this year, is unsustainable.

Their demands include the introduction of a tourist tax, the paralysation of two macro hotel projects in Tenerife they say are illegal and limits on the purchase of property by non-residents.

One of the speakers at a rally held at the end of the Tenerife march said: ‘We need less hire car, improvements in public transport and we need to stop being so many people per square kilometre.

‘Each new golf course, each new hotel and each attack on our environment will mean that there will be more people who will join the fight and turn the pain that it causes us into the fuel that drives us to continue this battle.’

Ahead of yesterday’ marches Brit expat engineer Brian Harrison, who is actively involved in environmental campaigning in Tenerife and took part in the island demo, said: ‘We’re taking our protest to the holiday heartlands this time round and not the island capitals to educate visitors to the fact there’s serious problems here, but also because it poses the biggest nightmare to our political leaders that anti mass-tourism demos are going on in tourist areas.

‘These politicians go to tourism trade shows around Europe promoting the islands as a paradise and the last thing they want is something like this.

‘It was a big decision to do this because none of the 70 groups that made up the 20A movement behind these new protests is against tourism or say there should be no tourism but it had to be taken because nothing’s changed since the last ones.

‘If anything things have gone backwards with new tourism projects being approved and work on hotels we’ve flagged up as illegal carrying on and the developers being given more rights.

‘The protests are going to be noticed by British and Irish tourists holidaying in the Canaries because we’re taking our fight to them and want to show them the Canary Islands are not the paradise they’ve been sold and there are consequences of them being here in the quantities they are.’

He went on to add, although he admitted it was difficult to control what everyone said and did: ‘No-one needs to have any concerns we’ll offend tourists in any way. Placards are being made up but they’re against the government and not the foreign holidaymakers.

‘It will be a peaceful protest and a safe protest. We want to be effective not offensive, in line with the guidelines from the organisers.’

Yesterday’s protests were the latest in a series of demos and other actions that have taken place across mainland Spain as well as the Balearic Islands already this year.

Two major demos have taken place in the Majorcan capital Palma, the first on May 25 when organisers had to apologise afterwards for abuse directed at some foreign holidaymakers.

Shocked tourists were booed and jeered by some locals as they ate evening meals on terraces in Palma’s Weyler Square.

Marchers were also heard chanting ‘Tourists go home’ as they passed through the central square on the 20-minute route from the park where the protest began to iconic street Paseo del Borne.

A second huge protest in Palma on July 21 passed off peacefully, although some demonstrators used Spain’s Euros final win to poke fun at English tourists and others branded British holidaymakers ‘drunks.’

The banners they were carrying as they took to the streets of the island capital included one which said in a gloating play on words over a picture of Kyle Walker: ‘The only thing coming home is you’ followed by the 2-1 scoreline printed between England and Spain flags.

Another of the banners the protestors carried said in English, despite pleas from regional government spokesman Antoni Costa to locals to show foreign visitors ‘respect’ ahead of the march: ‘Take back your drunks, give back our homes.’

On July 27 around 250 protestors impeded tourist access to a picture-postcard Menorcan beach in a ‘surprise action’.

Activists boasted of filling a car park by Cala Turqueta, a beautiful cove on the island’s southern coast, with ‘residents’ cars’.

They then used towels and their own bodies to shape the message ‘SOS Menorca’ on the sand by the waterline.