Tenerife Magazine’s round up of some of the most interesting news stories of the week in Tenerife.
Tourism is Booming on Tenerife
Despite rising petrol prices and continued talk of economic crisis, the number of visitors to the Canary Islands rose by a staggering 22% in March compared to 2010. Over 1 million people visited the islands during the month with 366,241 landing on Tenerife alone. The trend should continue in April with online travel site Skyscanner announcing that Tenerife is proving to be the second most popular destination with the British as the location to spend Easter. Topping the list is Malaga with New York, Barcelona and Rome falling into place behind. It just goes to show that places can be promoted as being sexy, trendy and in vogue till the cows come home, but in the end it’s hard to beat the lure of that big golden orb in the sky.
Saving the Canarian Black Pig
The 1st Cochino Negro Canario Fair (Canarian black pig) on 14th and 15th May at the Ethnological Park in Pinolere in La Orotava celebrates bringing the species back from the edge of extinction. There are now 32 cochino negro farmers on Tenerife breeding the unique pig which some say is a hybrid of African, Spanish and even English porkers. The fair will include some of the pigs, photographic exhibitions, information stands and show cooking displays of roasting pork, sausages and black pudding.
The fair will also have a tasca where visitors can sample just about every lip-smacking bit of the cochino negro. It’s wonderful that the species has been saved from extinction and an old Canary Island tradition is being kept alive, but isn’t saving a pig from extinction in order to eat it just the height of delicious irony?
Los Gigantes Beach Reopens
After a year and a half of being closed to the public following the tragic accident that claimed the lives of two sunbathers, Los Gigantes beach finally reopened its sandy doors to sunseekers on Friday. Around €500,000 has been invested to ensure the safety of visitors to Los GuÃos, aka Los Gigantes beach. The reopening of the only sandy beach in Los Gigantes is a huge boost for the area and isn’t it nice to see that the local authorities managed to have the work completed just in time for the local elections.
And finally the TIT (This Is Tenerife) of the week award goes to…the Coalición Canaria’s candidate for mayor of Tenerife
This week CC’s candidate for mayor of Tenerife’s capital Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez , announced his intention to create a new police unit specifically for tourists in the city. Just to clarify in case anyone gets the wrong idea; it’s intention would be to look after their safety and not to follow visitors around, handing out fines when they unwittingly dip their toes into Plaza España’s fountain etc.
Being concerned about the safety of visitors to Santa Cruz is commendable…except for two factors. The first is that Santa Cruz is already an incredibly safe place to visit. The second is the reason we’ve awarded Snr Bermúdez the not-so-coveted TIT of the week award. There are already four different police forces on Tenerife: The PolicÃa Local, Guardia Civil, National Police and the disturbingly fascist looking PolicÃa Canarias.
Having four different police forces was already overkill, especially when some are complaining of not having the vehicles or equipment to be able to carry out their roles effectively. With a recent past such as Spain’s you’d think that promises to create more police forces wouldn’t really be that much of a vote winner with the public.
Incidentally if anyone out there would like to explain exactly what role each of the current bodies of police perform we’re sure there would be thousands of people who would love to know.
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