Tenerife Tourist Hotspot Arona Faces Income Inequality Crisis

You don't need to be a genius to see that most people here aren't exactly rolling in money. That's according to Raúl García, a waiter from Murcia. He was doing some weekend shopping on Calle Fuerteventura, the main street in El Fraile, a neighborhood in Arona. "Just look around," he said, "walk to the end of the street and wander down any side street." He was talking about one of the poorest areas in Arona, a town recently highlighted by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Their report, the Atlas of household income distribution, showed data for 2023.

Arona has over 86,000 residents and a budget of over 127 million euros. It's also a major tourist destination in Tenerife. According to Exceltur, a tourism alliance, Arona has over 60,000 tourist beds, making it the eleventh-largest destination in Spain and second in Tenerife, after Adeje. These are impressive numbers, but they don't translate into high incomes for the locals. While Arona isn't the poorest town in Tenerife, it's close.

The average annual income per person in Arona is just 11,184 euros, far less than the 17,109 euros in El Rosario, the richest town. Arona ranks only above La Victoria de Acentejo, Icod de los Vinos, Los Silos, and El Tanque. This highlights a common issue in Tenerife and the Canary Islands: tourist towns don't always have wealthy residents. Arona is currently fifth from the bottom in income rankings, but it used to be even worse. In 2021 and 2022, it had the lowest incomes on the island.

Locals are well aware of this. They might not know the exact figures, but they feel it every day. "Look at the phone booths, the small shops, the tobacco shops... Look at the houses. How can this be a rich town?!" the waiter said while shopping on Calle Fuerteventura. El Fraile is a product of modern Arona, which grew rapidly with the tourism boom of the late 20th century. This led to the development of popular areas like Los Cristianos and Las Américas. Initially, this offered opportunities for locals to escape poverty. However, the rapid growth became a problem. So many people came seeking their "tourist dream" that the situation spiraled out of control.

Antonio Álvarez, a tourism graduate, has worked all over southern Tenerife. He explains, "Arona is like a melting pot, with people coming from all over Tenerife, Spain, Europe, and South America. There's a large unregistered population and a shadow economy." Álvarez believes that these factors, rather than tourism itself, are the main reasons for the low incomes. "It's a very complex situation," he says.

The Arona you don't see on postcards isn't just in El Fraile, but also in Guaza and areas further up from the highway, like Cabo Blanco. The situation is even worse in Lomo Negro, a settlement built without planning permission next to El Fraile, and behind the banana plantations of Guaza. Another such area is located between Los Cristianos and Montaña de Guaza. There are also shanty towns, large-scale squatting in buildings like the Chasna building, and people living in camper vans to be close to work.

Antonio Rodríguez, a retired man from Santa Cruz with a second home in Las Galletas, mentioned this last issue. "My son has a friend in his thirties who works with him in a hotel. He can't afford a place to live here in the South, so he sleeps in his car on the days he works to avoid the long drive from Tacoronte, where he lives with his parents, and to save on gas," he said. "In my opinion, things are getting worse."

Across the street in Las Galletas, Tatiana González shared her experience. She's 39 and lives with her partner and son in a rented apartment that costs 800 euros. She works in a shop, and he works in a restaurant. "We're doing okay, because with both our salaries, we can pay rent, buy food, and clothes for our son. We can't complain. But it's not normal that this is the best we can hope for. It's a general problem, not just in Arona, but many people here are struggling."

The contrast you might expect in Los Cristianos and Las Américas, just a few kilometers away, is more about appearances than reality. The scenery changes, but the stories don't. That's what you hear from people in the famous Golden Mile area. Santiago Reyes was loading chairs into a hotel on Friday morning. He's been in Tenerife for thirty years, looking for work. "I'm not surprised by what you're telling me. It's normal for people to have low incomes. We're all workers here," said this man in his fifties from Valencia. "The only ones with money are some tourists, but not all of them. And maybe the owners of the big hotels and companies. Even someone who opens a small business doesn't get rich, they just get by."

A young man from El Tanque, who preferred to remain anonymous, added that he travels to Las Américas for work every day. "The Insular Ring road has made it easy to get to the South," he said. He pointed out that the money generated by Arona and its tourism doesn't just stay in the town, but spreads to other parts of the island. "For example, my income isn't counted here, but in El Tanque, where I'm registered." He admitted that it's still surprising that a place with so much tourism has such low incomes.

Rubén González, who is from Arona and works maintaining a hotel swimming pool, said, "It seems normal to me that people earn around 11,000 euros per year. Almost everyone with a full-time job here earns a little over 1,000 euros a month, and then there are people who don't work or have any income, which is a lot. Even 11,000 euros seems high to me." He added, "Some people might say they should be paid more, but I can't expect to earn 3,000 euros for cleaning a pool."