“Tourism has given so much to Lanzarote”

Rita Hernández is a well-known face in Teguise politics and business, occupying council positions under three separate parties. Appointed Councillor of Tourism, Beaches and Planning in 2023, we spoke to her just four days after April’s floods caused chaos in Costa Teguise.

First of all, do you have any idea of the damage that the floods have caused?

Not yet. We’ll be evaluating that as we go along. What we do know is that three hotels have had to close temporarily – the Salinas, the HD and the Trebol Apartments.

Are there plans to protect against the same thing happening in future?

We currently have three experts preparing a report on exactly what happened and what can possibly be done to avoid it, but I’m not sure we could ever prepare for an event like that. The barrancos worked well – they always have done – but that much rain in two hours was just too much for them.

Moving onto the recent announcement about investment in beaches. Can you tell us a little more?

Yes. We’ll be spending 635,000 Euros on several beaches in the municipality. €335,000 of that will go towards material such as lifesavers towers, signage, flags etc, and the main beaches that will benefit will be Las Cucharas and El Jablillo in Costa Teguise, as well as Famara and beaches on La Graciosa.

We also plan to renovate the public conveniences in Costa Teguise, namely at Las Cucharas, El Jablillo and Playa Bastián. We’re aware of the complaints that tourists have made about these facilities, and we hope to have a contract in place to operate them by mid-summer.

Also, wooden catwalks will be installed at Las Cucharas and Playa Bastián to improve access, we’re providing some shaded areas at Las Cucharas and the ten showers on the beaches of the resort will be replaced by foot washes to save water.

We know how popular Costa Teguise is, and we want to have the best services that a resort can have.

What about the dilapidated, neglected aspect of parts of the resort?

I believe Costa Teguise is one of the bestplanned resorts in the Canaries, but in recent years it’s been neglected and it will take a huge investment to get everything up to date. Nevertheless, there’s been action to get rid of two of the abandoned hotels, and plans to convert the others into hotels.

The gardens in the resort have also been neglected, but we’ve worked on 600 of the 7,000 palm trees, mainly in popular tourist zones such as Las Cucharas and Jablillo, and that work will continue.

What is your opinion on the protests that took place against mass tourism last year? The problems they were complaining about haven’t gone away.

I think it’s important to be aware of what we have in Costa Teguise. We need to assess our tourism and make sure it’s ordered and organised. For example, we can’t allow places such as garages and terraces to become holiday rental accommodation.

We need to maintain quality, but when people say there are too many tourists, I always think of those families that have saved hard for years to come to Lanzarote. Do they not have the right to come? Tourism has given so much to Lanzarote – we just have to organise it.

But what about housing? People are living in mobile homes or squatting in abandoned hotels in Costa Teguise. Is there a lack of housing?

I’m not so sure there is. There are many properties that are simply left unused because owners are frightened to let them to residential tenants. The tenant has more rights than the landlord under the current law.

Any other major projects on the horizon?

We’re currently preparing to apply for €15 million from EU Next Generation funds. This is the first time such a request has been made for Teguise alone, and if approved it will mean that we can make important investments in 23 areas of Costa Teguise, including culture, youth services, AI, digitalisation, decarbonisation, planning and sports. We’ll be announcing full details in June.