‘Tourist saturated’ Lanzarote hints at plan to limit visitors from United Kingdom

The Spanish island of Lanzarote wants fewer British tourists.

The popular holiday destination in the Canary Island has declared itself a “tourist-saturated area” and is now considering ways to limit the number of UK visitors it receives.

The new strategy is a bid to “reduce dependence on the British market”.

More than 50 per cent of visitors to the Island currently come from the United Kingdom. Some of these tourists have a reputation for rowdy behaviour.

Overcrowding is an existential threat to the island, said Lanzarote’s President María Dolores Corujo.

“We are going to continue to promote the debate on the limits to growth even though they try to gag us with the ghost of fear of damage to the image of Lanzarote,” she insisted.

The local opposition party has condemned the plan which they claim will drive prices up for locals and devastate the local economy.

The plan has a clear intention - reducing the number of British holidaymakers.

However, authorities haven’t hammered out details on how this will be achieved.

There is no detail of an official ‘limit’ yet, but the council website indicates that the tourism authorities will soon start targeting marketing toward other European countries.

"In Madrid, we once again highlighted our firm commitment to sustainability and excellence, and this also means aspiring to receive fewer tourists, with more spending at the destination so that they generate greater wealth in the economy as a whole,” a statement on the council website reads.

"That growth is expected in French, Italian, Netherlands or mainland Spain markets and we hope that it will continue to have a direct impact on the increase in tourist spending in the destination."

Lanzarote is the latest of several Spanish islands to express