Alternative Tourism on Gran Canaria

Book excerpt: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: When thinking about the island of Gran Canaria hardly anyone has the image of endless green and yellow flushing mountains, little traditional colourful villages, undiscovered wine-cellars and hidden cultural treasures in mind. But this may change in the future, as Gran Canaria is on its way to a new tourism development, in search for alternative tourism. In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in interest for alternative forms of tourism, which are frequently presented as alternatives to traditional mass tourism. Factors responsible for the enhanced awareness include a greater awareness of the environmental impacts of tourism, a growing demand from tourists for new experiences and economic development policies. Today leisure and tourism are more than just elements in social life, but also indicate the individual's position in society. People are looking for sporting challenges like biking, climbing or rafting, or want to collect experience of life inside foreign cultures. On Gran Canaria alternative tourism expresses the alternative to the island s mass tourism. Nearly three million visitors have arrived annually on the island, but within the last years these numbers are decreasing constantly. An action out of this development was the implementation of a diversification policy, while focusing on other tourism resources Gran Canaria can present. The island offers much more than only sandy-white beaches and crystal clear water all year long. These new tourism products focus on the natural resources of the island in its interior, where the original life of indigenous people still can be witnessed. Products like rural tourism, activity tourism or golf tourism are becoming here more and more importance. Until now, only La Gomera and El Hierro are known for their alternative vacation offers within the Canary Islands. But this may change, as the island opens its doors for a new type of traveller trough a very diverse tourist offer than the island was known for since years. There have been many ups and downs in the tourism development of the island in the last years, but it seems like if the island learned from its mistakes in the past and found a different way for its future tourist development. A new age of tourism is about to come for Gran Canaria. The objective of this paper is to introduce the reader to the term alternative tourism by portraying the particularities of this kind of tourism and show off the [...]