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History of the Canary Islands: Rough times |
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History of the Canary Islands:
ROUGH TIMES
Times were rough on the Canary islands, and the economy was tight. A lot of people emmigrated to South America and the people who were left on the island were struggling to make the ends meet.
The sugar cane production was restarted in the the 18th century and some tourists started arriving at the islands in the late 1800's. Most of these tourist were englishmen on cruiseships, and it gave the islands a little economic boost. But during the first World War it came restrictions on trade, and the economy fell again.
From the 1960's Franco introduced more liberal restrictions, which gave a rise in the export of goods from the Canaries. Most of all in bananas, but also tobacco. Tourism was another sector that Franco encouraged, and it started slowly in the beginning of the 60's before it exploded and became the biggest growing industry on the islands.
The sudden boom in the tourism sector gave an economic lift to the Canaries, but it also brought new worries. Many of the touristareas, especially in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, are overexploited and the massive number of tourists arriving every year are tapping hard in to the resources which already are sparse on the islands, like water and electricity.
The smaller islands have still not been discovered by the 'mass-tourists'. Islands like La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera have no big touristareas, and have kept their typical canarian charm. There is tourism on the islands, but in a much smaller scale than the large islands. People that come here on holidays tend to come back year after year, because they like it so much.
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