Canary Islands Tourism Protests Turn Violent, Spark Concerns for Industry

In a video, we see a group of protesters roaming around several rental cars, parked in a parking lot in the seaside resort of Costa Adeje, in the south of the island of Tenerife. To the rhythm of Edith Piaf’s song "Non, je ne regrette rien", the group began to break the windows of the rental cars. A protester then pours a flammable liquid on the ground and sets fire to a car.

The video of this scene of chaos was widely shared on social media by anti-tourism activists in Tenerife, reports Canarian Weekly cited by Daily Mail. "We received this video from activists in the Canary Islands, exasperated by mass tourism, overcrowding in their neighborhoods and the total lack of redistribution of the so-called wealth generated by tourism," they wrote in the caption of the video.

These incidents could push tourists to abandon the archipelago and rush to other more welcoming destinations like Morocco. The kingdom welcomed 2.7 million tourists in the first two months of 2025, confirming its position as a must-visit global destination.