University of Helsinki
The Canary Islands are a familiar travel destination for many Europeans. The destination is often associated with images of pleasant climate, long beaches or lively nightlife. However, the Canary Islands are also the home for many endemic species that are found nowhere else in the world. The climatic and geological diversity of the islands makes them a hotspot of biodiversity in the middle of the Atlantic.
The MOBICON project explores the recreational use of nature and nature tourism based on Mobile Big Data. Recently, MOBICON researchers have mapped local actors’ perceptions of major changes related to nature-based tourism and future information needs in several study areas. The second workshop (see our report from a workshop in Helsinki) was organized in Las Palmas in March 2024, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The workshop brought together 20 experts of the environmental and tourism sectors across the islands to discuss the future of nature conservation in the islands. Discussions in the workshop underlined the conflicts between mass tourism and nature conservation in the Canary Islands, but also identified ways forward. These discussions and the results of a pre-workshop survey are now published in a working report in English and Spanish.
Link to the report in English: https://doi.org/10.31885/2024.062702
Link to the report in Spanish: https://doi.org/10.31885/2024.062701
The report may be cited as follows:
Hästbacka, M., Brias Guinart, A., Eklund, J., González Hernández, M. M., Leppämäki, T., Morales González, S. C., Pulido Hernández, M., Ramirez Cabrera, A. S., Santana Suárez, A., and Toivonen, T. (2024). Changes in nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation in the Canary Island: Observations, information needs and ways forward. Helsinki: Digital Geography Lab, University of Helsinki. doi:10.31885/2024.062702.
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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.