A Swede helped boast this Los town

Tenerife is one of the top tourist destinations on the planet. It is the largest Canary Island and gets around five million tourists a year, which makes it not only one of the busiest resort on the Canary Islands but in Spain as well. The southern region of Tenerife is one of the most popular parts of the island due to it be the more hotter, drier and better developed region. One of the well developed resorts is Los Cristianos which had a tourist boom earlier than most on the island.



The roots of Los Cristianos tourism lie with a Swedish man he was called Bengt Rylander but most people called him Don Benito. He ventured to Los Cristianos in 1956 because he was suffering from multiple sclerosis and was hoping that the warm climate and clean air would make him feel better or at least ease his ailments. He recovered very well to the extent that he felt he needed to spread the word about this mild and sunny climate to his friends in Sweden. It helped that he used to be a writer and a TV commentator as he was able to spread the word to various other avenues. In the following year he was joined by several other Swedish people, mainly his friends who were suffering from poliomyelitis and rheumatic diseases. This is the earliest known sign of tourism in Los Cristianos; it was known for ailing and convalescent Swedes. Their mark was left on the town as the main high street in Los Cristianos is called Avenida de Suecia which means Avenue of Sweden and there is also the Casa Sueca that is a Swedish Luthetran Church that can be found on the seafront.



The tourism around that time wasn't mainly Swedish people though as other people from European countries also visited in growing numbers. This led to constructions of many buildings in Los Cristianos in order to find a place for the constantly growing number of people visiting. Buildings that were being put up at this time were the Cristianmar, Rosamar and the four-star Oasis Moreque Hotel. Also because of the amount of disabled Swedish visitors that city was getting they also opened the Vitersol public rehabilitation clinic in 1965.



The numbers of tourists visiting continued to grow going into the 70's but it was thanks to the new international airport in the southern region of Tenerife for the reason why it started to boom. Numerous huge and unique hotel and apartment blocks were built around this time. This was a time when Los Cristianos had the most sought after apartments in Tenerife as the not only were tourists growing in numbers but workers as well. It was in 1980 when the town had to expand, this was a time when holiday makers would capitalise and come onto the scene. British expatriates started to migrate to the town during the winter months obviously to soak up the warm sun rather than the cold wet winter they would experience back in Britain. English is widely spoken there almost as well as Spanish, so there will be no surprise to see a number of British owned bars, restaurants, shops and services that focus heavily on the tourist sector of the town. There has been a downfall for the tourist boom though as there are no longer any banana crops in the vicinity and only a small fishing fleet remains in the town which use to have both in abundance. Also although there is a harbour it is mainly used for cruises and ferry services rather than commercial shipping.

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