Jay Slater missing in Tenerife adds to the island’s declining appeal for British tourists

Lost on the way home

19-year-old Jay Slater was heading back from a night out in Playa de Las Americas when he somehow turned up on the other side of Tenerife, in the remote and hazardous national park area around Masca — without water, and with just 1% phone battery. Friends and family have said they have no idea how he got there.

What happened to the likeable Lancashire lad after arriving in the Masca area of Tenerife has also been the subject of intense international media speculation. Fragmented calls to friends, phone triangulation and reported sightings have not given investigators enough reliable detail to build a clear timeline. At the time of writing, Jay Slater remains missing in Tenerife.

Tenerife police have been widely criticised for refusing offers of help from UK police, including additional manpower, resources and technology. Despite insisting no assistance was needed from their UK counterparts, Spanish police called off their unsuccessful search on Saturday 29 June 2024.

Tourists not welcome?

A wave of anti-tourism graffiti has appeared across Tenerife over the last two years, on buildings, roads, walls and bridges. Messages include “tourists go home”, “too many guiris” (‘guiri’ is offensive slang for foreigners – particularly British people) and “Locals are forced to move out and YOU are responsible for that… digital nomads you are NOT welcome here.”

The Olive Press reports that many Tenerife residents are angry about what they see as mass tourism driving environmental problems and making day-to-day life harder for people who live on the island. That frustration spilled into the streets in April, when 50,000 people took to the streets in a large protest, holding placards with messages such as “you enjoy, we suffer.”

Since mass tourism took off in the late 1950s, the Canary Islands developed rapidly from an isolated farming and fishing community into a major economic hub, with an annual GDP of €49 billion. Tourism accounts for around 30% of that revenue, but locals argue the money is not reaching them and that many people are living in poverty. They may have a point: GDP per capita in the Canaries is 20.8% lower than the national average, and the third-lowest in Spain.

Either way, visitors heading to Tenerife this summer may not find the same warm welcome that holidaymakers once associated with the island.

Brits are already choosing rival destinations such as Benidorm, which welcome and actively seek British business.

Extinct timeshare resorts

During the 1980s and 1990s, Tenerife was rife with hyper-aggressive timeshare operations. Beach walks were crowded with (literally) thousands of commission-only touts called OPCs, who would pester tourists to the point of harassment. The goal was to funnel holidaymakers into high-pressure sales presentations at the many resorts built by notorious, larger-than-life gangsters.

“Authorities stepped in when the scale of the problem escalated to the point where tourism itself was being threatened, as people began to shun Tenerife and the other Canary Islands,” explains Greg Wilson, CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC). “Consumer laws were created to curb the excesses.”

Resorts pushed back against those laws and got away with ignoring them for 17 years. From 2016 onwards, however, courts began awarding victims compensation to be paid by the timeshare companies. Eight years later, practically all timeshare sales operations in Europe have been wiped out financially and forced to close. Without the incentive to keep once-pristine buildings maintained as sales centres, many sites have fallen into disrepair.

What was once a fashionable, sought-after way to holiday — membership of a private holiday club — has become anything but.

Sadly, hundreds of thousands of Brits remain committed to paying annual fees for unwanted timeshare resorts in locations such as Tenerife.

Trapped?

Timeshare contracts are designed to lock members in. Annual fees can be increased at the resort’s discretion, leaving members with little choice but to pay what they are asked — whether they take a holiday that year or not.

Exchange systems are notoriously unworkable, so members often end up returning to their home resort regardless of its condition — and regardless of how the desirability of that location changes over time.

If you’re stuck in a timeshare membership you no longer want, get in touch with our team at the Timeshare Advice Centre.

You may even be entitled to financial compensation if you were mis-sold your membership.