Had to venture to the southern resorts yesterday on business. It’s funny, the area around Playa las Americas is probably the place that I know least on the island. Reason being that much of it has been developed purely for tourism and, unless you’re on vacation and want a sun, sea and sand holiday, or are working in that sector and live there, it doesn’t really hold much interest.
However, despite constantly trying to promote the Tenerife that exists outside the resorts, I really don’t have a problem with their existence, quite the opposite. Thirty years ago, the area where the main resorts have been developed was pretty much a desert and good for nothing. The truth is that tourism brings in a fantastic amount of revenue to the island. It’s the mainstay of the economy, without it the lives of many of the islanders would be much more difficult, such as it was before some visionary businessmen transformed arid stretches of coastal badlands into moneymaking tourist resorts.
Recently I read some comments on the Times online website from a man who had a go at the British for buying up all the houses on Tenerife. Interesting point-he clearly knew nothing about the island. It’s true that a lot of British have moved to Tenerife (just as they have done since its conquest alongwith the Spanish, Portuguese, Flemish, Italians etc, etc), but these days many buy houses in the south and southwest, near the main resorts. The fact is that for 500 years the only people that lived in these areas were a few fishermen.
Most Tinerfeños lived, as they do now, in the greener and more fertile north of the island.
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