Were Canary residents surveyed?

No. The barometer analyses publicly available posts on social networks, online media and specialist forums. Anyone who does not post there is absent from the data.

How can the score be 5.2 if 59 per cent of posts are negative?

Because the score is not a share of approval. It combines conversation volume with a net sentiment measure LLYC calls sNPS into an index value between 0 and 10.

Do representative surveys say the same thing?

Only in part. UNED's Sociobarómetro of December 2025 found 58 per cent judging visitor numbers appropriate and 20.7 per cent excessive. ISTAC's ECOSOC survey shows broad recognition of the economic benefit alongside widespread criticism of the effect on prices and housing.

Do the Canaries now have an eco-tax?

There is no archipelago-wide tourist levy. On Tenerife the island council approved an earmarked charge for protected areas, and a levy on non-residents at Teide National Park was announced from 2026. A general overnight-stay tax was voted down there.

CANARY ISLANDS · TOURISM

The Canaries score 5.2 out of 10: what the LLYC tourism barometer actually measures

The Canary Islands are back above the pass mark in the tourism barometer published by the consultancy LLYC: 5.2 points out of 10 for the second quarter of 2026, up from 4.7 in the same quarter of 2025. The figure was circulated in August and has been read in several outlets as evidence that acceptance of tourism on the islands is rising.

7 September 2026 · By Martin Kosinski · 6 min.

Seafront promenade with holidaymakers (illustrative)

Photo: Gerda Arendt, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Symbolbild).

That reading only partly survives a look at the method. The barometer is not a population survey but an analysis of digital conversation – and over the same period, according to the same study, 59 per cent of Canary posts about tourism were negative. This piece sets out what the 5.2 supports and what it does not.

What the barometer says

LLYC, a Spanish communications and consulting firm, publishes its Barómetro de Percepción Turística quarterly. The second-quarter 2026 edition was distributed on 11 August 2026, according to the news agency Europa Press.

It puts the Canary Islands at 5.2 out of 10. That is 0.5 points above the 4.7 recorded for the second quarter of 2025, and it takes the archipelago back over the five-point line that counts as a pass in Spain. The phrase "the Canaries recover their pass mark" comes from the coverage of the report by La Voz de Lanzarote.

The islands nevertheless remain below the Spanish average, which LLYC put at 5.4 points for the quarter – seven tenths higher than a year earlier and unchanged on the previous quarter. That leaves the Canaries twelfth of Spain's 17 autonomous communities.

Summaries of the report attribute the improvement mainly to two things: promotion of the destination abroad and increased air connectivity. Both are themes that sit on the positive side of the online debate.

What is measured, and what is not

The method matters more than the headline. LLYC does not ask anyone anything. The barometer is built on social listening: it collects posts from social networks, digital media and specialist forums, classifies them as positive, negative or neutral by tone, and converts the result into a score from 0 to 10. For the 2026 edition, reports cite close to 1.2 million messages analysed over twelve months, part of a series LLYC has run since 2022.

The score combines the volume of conversation with a net sentiment measure that LLYC calls sNPS. La Voz de Ibiza describes that indicator as the net balance of the conversation on a scale from −100 to +100. A 5.2 is therefore not a share of people who approve of anything; it is a composite index of how much is being said and in what tone.

That resolves an apparent contradiction. For the Canaries in the second quarter of 2026, the study reports 59 per cent negative posts, 23.5 per cent neutral and 17.5 per cent positive, according to La Voz de Lanzarote. In this model, a passing score and a predominantly critical debate are entirely compatible.

Spanish coverage has also flagged the limits. People who do not post online, or who do not write specifically about tourism, simply do not appear in the data – a point made by the Catalan-Balearic daily Ara Balears in its analysis of the barometer. The standard objections to social listening apply too: there is no random sample, contributors select themselves, and coverage depends on the search terms chosen. What is captured is the climate of public online conversation, not the opinion of a population.

The Canaries against the rest of Spain

In the second-quarter 2026 ranking reported consistently across Spanish media, Extremadura leads with 7.7 points, followed by Aragón and Asturias on 7.5 each. Then come Murcia and Navarre (7.2 each), Castilla-La Mancha (6.9), Cantabria (6.8), La Rioja (6.7), Castile and León (6.6) and Galicia (6.2).

The lower half runs Madrid (5.6), the Canary Islands (5.2), the Basque Country (5.1), the Balearic Islands (5.0), the Valencian Community (4.9), Catalonia (4.3) and Andalusia (4.1). The order tracks tourism intensity fairly closely: regions with many visitors per resident score worse than inland regions with fewer.

That is itself a caution about what the number carries. A social-listening score depends heavily on how much a destination is argued about at all. Tourism is not a conflict issue in Extremadura; in the Canaries it has been one for years. The gap shows up in the score without implying that people in Extremadura are more favourable to tourism than Canary residents are.

At national level, LLYC reports a shift in what is being discussed. Alongside overcrowding and housing costs, the state of infrastructure is gaining weight: according to El Periódico's account of the study, it now ranks among the six most-discussed themes in twelve regions. For the Canaries, several outlets report that security became the leading topic in the tourism conversation in the second quarter of 2026.

The backdrop: protests, housing, the eco-tax

The 4.7 recorded in 2025 belongs to a period of sustained protest. On 20 April 2024, tens of thousands demonstrated across the archipelago under the slogan Canarias tiene un límite ("the Canaries have a limit"). The central government delegation counted more than 30,000 people in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and around 14,000 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, according to El País; organisers and some outlets gave archipelago-wide totals ranging from just over 57,000 to almost 200,000.

On 20 October 2024, El País reported around 9,000 people back on the streets. A further round followed on 18 May 2025: RTVE put total turnout at 23,190, including 15,000 in Tenerife, 5,000 in Gran Canaria and 2,000 in Lanzarote, while the organising platforms spoke of 90,000 to 100,000, according to eldiario.es. The demands included a tourism moratorium, an eco-tax, controls on holiday rentals, limits on property purchases by non-residents and action on wastewater discharges.

On housing, the barometer and everyday experience point the same way: rental and purchase prices are among the strongest drivers of negative conversation on the islands, according to LLYC, followed by strain on infrastructure and environmental damage in protected areas.

There is still no archipelago-wide tourist levy. Across Spain, the available overviews list only Catalonia, the Balearics and Asturias as regions with a tourist tax in force. On Tenerife, the island council rejected a Socialist motion for an overnight-stay tax, with CC, PP and Vox voting it down, but approved an earmarked charge for services in protected natural areas; island president Rosa Dávila announced a levy on non-residents at Teide National Park from 2026, with residents exempt or paying a reduced rate. The regional parliament debated an eco-tax again in 2025.

How much weight one number can carry

Representative surveys of the same subject exist for the Canaries, and they tell a different story from the headlines about the barometer. The Sociobarómetro de Canarias run by the distance university UNED, published in December 2025 with a sample of 1,511 people, found that 58 per cent of respondents consider the number of visitors appropriate, 20.7 per cent think it is excessive and 12.3 per cent think it should be higher.

The Canary statistics institute ISTAC, for its part, ran a tourism module within its ECOSOC household survey in the second quarter of 2024, covering residents aged 18 and over. According to ISTAC, close to 70 per cent regard tourism as beneficial because it attracts needed investment while also saying it pushes up the cost of living. Three in four say it contributes to economic development but raises rental and purchase prices; 63.3 per cent perceive that tourism causes people to move home and 44.6 per cent see tension between residents and visitors. On a tourist tax, 43 per cent were in favour, 24 per cent against and 28.5 per cent unsure.

These findings do not contradict the barometer. They measure something else. Surveys record the views of a drawn sample; social listening records the statements of those who choose to speak. Both instruments have their uses; they are not interchangeable.

For reading the 5.2, that means this: it shows that the digital conversation about tourism in the Canaries was less negative in the second quarter of 2026 than a year before. It does not show that the population accepts tourism more, that the conflicts over housing have eased, or that the protest movement has lost support. Citing the number as proof of "growing acceptance" stretches it beyond what the method can bear.

Where the representative data are: Readers who want the population's stance rather than the online debate will find it at the Canary statistics institute ISTAC (ECOSOC survey, tourism module) and at the Observatorio Turístico de Canarias, whose reports on the perception of tourism are freely available.
A rule of thumb for studies like this: check first whether people were asked or posts were counted. That single distinction decides which claims the number can support.

Handle the framing with care: the LLYC barometer is not a survey. It measures the volume and tone of public online posts, not the attitudes of Canary residents. A claim that "acceptance of tourism is rising" does not follow from it.
Note too that the 5.2 sits alongside 59 per cent negative posts in the same period. The full report is not published openly; every figure here comes from press coverage of results circulated by LLYC, not from a verifiable methodological annex.

Key figures

5.2 out of 10 for the Canary Islands in the second quarter of 2026, up from 4.7 in the second quarter of 2025 (Barómetro de Percepción Turística, LLYC; circulated in August 2026).
Spanish average 5.4 points, seven tenths above the same quarter of 2025; the Canaries rank twelfth of 17 regions (LLYC, per media reports).
Tone of Canary posts: 59 per cent negative, 23.5 per cent neutral, 17.5 per cent positive (LLYC, via La Voz de Lanzarote).
Data base: close to 1.2 million posts over twelve months from social networks, online media and specialist forums, compiled quarterly (LLYC).
Representative cross-check: 58 per cent of Canary residents consider visitor numbers appropriate and 20.7 per cent excessive (Sociobarómetro de Canarias, UNED, 1,511 respondents, December 2025).
Context: on 18 May 2025 RTVE counted 23,190 participants in the protests against the tourism model; organisers claimed 90,000 to 100,000, according to eldiario.es.

FAQ

Who produces the barometer?: The communications and consulting firm LLYC. It publishes the Barómetro de Percepción Turística quarterly; the second-quarter 2026 edition was circulated on 11 August 2026, according to Europa Press.
Were Canary residents surveyed?: No. The barometer analyses publicly available posts on social networks, online media and specialist forums. Anyone who does not post there is absent from the data.
How can the score be 5.2 if 59 per cent of posts are negative?: Because the score is not a share of approval. It combines conversation volume with a net sentiment measure LLYC calls sNPS into an index value between 0 and 10.
Do representative surveys say the same thing?: Only in part. UNED's Sociobarómetro of December 2025 found 58 per cent judging visitor numbers appropriate and 20.7 per cent excessive. ISTAC's ECOSOC survey shows broad recognition of the economic benefit alongside widespread criticism of the effect on prices and housing.
Do the Canaries now have an eco-tax?: There is no archipelago-wide tourist levy. On Tenerife the island council approved an earmarked charge for protected areas, and a levy on non-residents at Teide National Park was announced from 2026. A general overnight-stay tax was voted down there.

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