Canary Islands broke all records for foreign tourist arrivals in 2025, a trajectory that the regional government has extended as a benchmark of success until May 2026. At the same time, its most strategic tourism planning tools, the Plans for Modernization, Improvement, and Enhancement of Tourism Competitiveness (PMM), mention the word “sustainability” 129 times in their planning reports. However, according to a study led by Moisés Simancas, professor of Human Geography at the University of La Laguna (ULL), none of those mentions appear in binding regulatory provisions. Zero. This gap between rhetoric and law is not an academic contradiction: it constitutes a regulatory trap that threatens to render projects approved today under a green marketing umbrella null and void tomorrow, should they be deemed unsustainable due to a lack of specific legal criteria.
The quantified paradox: 129 versus zero
Simancas’s study analyzes the 13 PMMs approved between 2011 and 2015. These plans are not minor documents; they represent the main instrument for urban and tourism planning in the archipelago’s most saturated areas. In their reports, the diagnoses and declarations of intent, the terms “sustainable,” “sustainability,” and “sustainable development” appear 129 times. In contrast, in the binding regulatory provisions, the only ones that create rights and obligations for owners, developers, and administrations, the figure is zero.
Simancas puts it plainly: “This is all green marketing, as the Anglo-Saxons call it. That is, including the word sustainable in any document or title, even when applying for subsidies.” The difference is not semantic: a report can contain lofty aspirations; a binding regulation establishes limits, prohibitions, and management criteria that condition the viability of any project. By omitting sustainability from the normative section, the PMMs create a vacuum that allows for lax interpretations and, above all, legal uncertainty.
Sustainability as a limit: what the regulation does not say
Simancas himself recalls an uncomfortable truth: “Sustainability, by definition, is about limits.” Setting a limit, on building density, water consumption, waste generation, or carbon footprint, is a regulatory act that directly affects property rights and investors’ profit expectations. If those limits are not written into binding provisions, they do not legally exist. But that does not mean they cannot appear tomorrow.
Herein lies the core of the problem for investors and industry professionals. A tourism project approved today under a PMM that promises sustainability in its report but does not require it in its regulations may be perfectly legal for years. However, when social pressure, European Union demands, or the sheer evidence of environmental degradation force stricter regulation, as is already happening with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) or the European green taxonomy, those same projects could become outdated, subject to moratoriums, or directly declared unsustainable. The risk is not remote: it is a regulatory time bomb.
The Canary context: the mirage of tourism records
The Canary Islands are experiencing a paradoxical moment. Foreign tourist arrival figures for 2025 have been historic, and the regional government has extended the validity of those records as a success indicator until May 2026. But volume is not synonymous with quality or sustainability. The archipelago suffers from structural problems: infrastructure saturation, pressure on water resources, biodiversity loss, and social conflicts over tourist housing. In this context, approving plans that ignore sustainability in their binding regulations is not a technical error: it is a political choice that prioritizes the short term over future viability.
Simancas’s research also reveals a recurring pattern. In the documentation analyzed, sustainability appears as a declaration of intent, as a diagnosis, but disappears when it comes time to establish determinations. In other words, the problem is acknowledged, but the regulatory solution is avoided. For an autonomous community that depends on tourism for more than 35% of its GDP, this contradiction is a dangerous gamble: the tourism model of the future is being built on promises without legal backing.
Consequences for investors and professionals
For the SYNTHORA reader, entrepreneurs, investors, innovation and technology professionals, this gap between rhetoric and regulation has very concrete implications. First, it generates regulatory uncertainty: a project that complies with current law today may not do so tomorrow if binding sustainability criteria are introduced. Second, it discourages investment in clean technologies and efficient management models, because there is no framework that rewards or requires such practices. Third, it exposes companies to reputational and legal risks: when public opinion or the courts begin to demand consistency between what was promised and what was executed, projects backed by these plans will be the first to be singled out.
This is not about demonizing the drafters of the PMMs or the administrations that approve them. It is about pointing out a systemic flaw: sustainability has become a rhetorical ornament rather than a legal criterion. And until this is corrected, any investment in the Canary Islands tourism sector, whether in infrastructure, technology, or services, carries a regulatory risk that no conventional financial analysis is capturing.
Looking ahead: sustainability as a competitive advantage
The Canary Islands have until May 2026 to reflect, but the window is closing. The European Union is moving toward a regulatory framework where sustainability will not be optional but a condition for access to funds, licenses, and markets. Companies that have already integrated binding sustainability criteria into their projects will be better positioned; those operating under the umbrella of green marketing will face high adaptation costs and potential litigation.
Moisés Simancas’s study is not just another academic critique: it is a warning for those making investment decisions. The next time a tourism plan promises sustainability, the savvy investor will not look at the report. They will look at the binding provisions. If there are no limits there, there is no real commitment. And without real commitment, what exists is risk. In a world where regulation is moving toward enforcement, sustainability without a standard is not a promise: it is a trap.