Tenerife PSOE Challenges Teide Ecotax Visitor Figures

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) on the Tenerife Island Council has questioned the figures shared by island president Rosa Dávila about the first month of the ecotax in Teide National Park.

According to PSOE spokesperson Aarón Afonso, the visitor numbers for certain trails, as reported by the island government, don't seem right. He suggests these figures might be misleading to hide problems in how the park is managed and to justify the new access fee.

Afonso pointed out that President Dávila claimed over 38,000 people walked the Telesforo Bravo (Trail 10) and Montaña Blanca (Trail 7) trails in one month. However, these trails have strict daily limits of 300 permits each. This means each trail could only have about 9,000 visitors per month, or a total of 18,000 for both, even if some people used both trails on the same day. For 38,000 people to have visited, the rules designed to protect the volcano would have to be broken regularly.

The PSOE also highlighted a problem with how the dates were compared. The Island Council announced the ecotax would start on January 19th, but it would only apply to bookings made from that date onwards. This means the fee wouldn't really affect visitors until well into February. Therefore, visitors in January and early February wouldn't have paid the fee, making it wrong to blame any drop in visitor numbers during that time on the ecotax.

The PSOE offered a different reason for fewer visitors to the park during that period, which they say the island government ignored. From mid-December, several park routes were closed due to snow and ice. On top of that, the Teide cable car, which is crucial for reaching the peak, was shut for 30 out of the 60 days included in the analysis. The socialists believe these weather and operational issues are the real reasons for fewer visitors, not the new access charge.

While the PSOE supports rules and even fees for managing the park, they stress the need for "realistic" ways to control how many people visit and how they access the park. Finally, the socialists are concerned that only a small number of Tenerife residents (just 4%) are using trails 7 and 10, based on the data. They worry this might mean local people are being excluded from enjoying their natural heritage.