Sport Tourism in the Canary Islands: The Diversification of Mass Tourism

This chapter presents an overview of sport tourism in the Canary Islands, an archipelago that is the leading European Region in tourism, with over 15 million tourists per year, situated 1.000 km south of Spain. Tourism in the Canary Islands started in the 1960s, first in the islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and, to a lesser extent, Lanzarote, following a traditional sea and sun model, in which Tour operators transported European tourists via charter flights. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, changes in air transportation, due to the introduction of low-cost airlines, and the need to revitalize the destination to avoid stagnation promoted public policies aimed at the development of golf courses and marinas. Since then, the development of sport tourism has been regarded as a tool to rejuvenate the tourism model. After giving a general view of both the supply and demand side of sports tourism on the island, the chapter focuses on the islands of La Palma and Fuerteventura and concludes ends suggesting that the role of sports tourism in mature sea and sun destinations might be that of a diversification that permits it to persists.