Pandemic Mobility/(Im)mobility in the Canary Islands: irregular migrants becoming hotel guests

Abstract

In a border archipelago whose socio-economic structure is based on the specialization of tourism, mobility takes on its full significance with international tourists, labour migrants, migrants fleeing violence and poverty, lifestyle migrants, digital nomads, etc. The boundaries between these flows often become blurred, as the presence of tourists attracts labour migrants; labour and lifestyle migrants exchange roles; and irregular migrants become labour migrants. However, it has been the immobility caused by the pandemic that has turned the migration-tourism nexus on its head, transforming irregular migrants into guests of tourist establishments. Consequently, the purpose of this article is to reflect on the impact of the immobility caused by the pandemic in a territory whose raison d’être is mobility.