A Tenerife bar rep has defended the reputation of British visitors to the Canary Islands in the wake of protests about overtourism and increased scrutiny of behaviour by holidaymakers from the UK.
“The truth is everyone here lives from the tourists,” said ‘Moroccan Mo’, a well-known presence on the lively main strip of bars and clubs in Playa de las Americas.
“In Spain if you don’t have tourists you don’t have nothing. People are talking sh*t and attacking the English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. But they are the best customers.
“They are the best because they spend money, look after people and live the life. That’s what we like.
“Different nationalities are not as generous. Brits are really nice, if they go to the bar or the nightclub they give you tips, they give you food and are nice to you. They have that in their blood, they can never change it.”
A resident of the Canaries for well over two decades, Mo was angered when he heard about graffiti telling tourists to ‘go home’.
“It’s bad they say ‘go home’, who’s paying your rent? Your food? Your toilet paper? The milk for your daughter or son? It’s tourists,” he told the Express.
“If tourists don’t come here nobody is going to. They need to remember coronavirus [when] everywhere was empty and they said ‘we need them’.”
Asked what he made of the accusations that tourists had caused skyrocketing rents and an erasure of local culture, Mo pushed back.
“This is a problem all over the world,” he added, “not only here. Hotels used to cost €50 to €60 per night after coronavirus, now they’re more than €300.”
Mo is something of a local legend beloved by tourists for his knack for accurate accents and mind-blowing knowledge of far-away locations.
Back in 2021, Mo went viral on Irish social media for reeling off an array of Dublin slang which wowed a visitor from the city.
“What’s the story me auld fella? What’s the craic ya young one? What’s the craic? The craic is 90,” he told the impressed tourist.
Asked by the Express how he’d developed the skill Mo said he’d picked it up by speaking to Tenerife’s visitors.
“Sometimes I can tell where they’re from before they even speak. Newcastle I see them and just say ‘wey aye’, Londoners it’s ‘alright mate’.”
Mo added that on some occasions he could “smell” where a person was from but declined to go into the differences between how different Brits smell.
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