Playa de las Americas
| Municipality of Arona: Playa de las Américas | |||
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 A section of the seafront.
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| coat of arms | Map of the Canary Islands | ||
 Help on coat of arms |
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| Basic data | |||
| Autonomous Community : |
 Canary Islands
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| Province : | Santa Cruz de Tenerife | ||
| Island: | Tenerife | ||
| Coordinates | 28 ° 3 ′ N , 16 ° 44 ′ W | ||
| Residents : | 4,092 (2011) INE | ||
| Postal code : | 38650 | ||
| Area code: | 38006001700 | ||
Playa de las Américas , or Las Américas for short , is a coastal resort on the Canary Island of Tenerife that is designed as a holiday resort and is administered by the municipality of Arona . It is located about 78 kilometers by road from the provincial capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the southwest of the island. Playa de las Américas, together with the seamlessly adjoining towns of Los Cristianos , Costa Adeje , Torviscas, Playa de Fañabé and La Caleta, is one of the most important tourist centers in Spain with an accommodation capacity for more than 100,000 guests (as of 2008). In 2011, the Spanish State Statistics Institute (INE) registered 4,092 people with their main residence in Playa de las Américas.
history
The history of Playa de las Américas as a tourist destination goes back to the 50s of the 20th century, when more and more Scandinavian guests visited the southwest coast of Tenerife for health reasons. The Swede Bengt Rylander, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and hoped for some relief from the mild climate, had found accommodation in the then still small and insignificant fishing village of Los Cristianos , as did his compatriot Olle Ryding , who had rheumatism . Both men complained that there were no therapeutic care options nearby. They were able to convince both the Spanish and the Swedish authorities of the necessity of such facilities, so that in 1965, after three years of construction, the Centro de Rehabilitación Ramón y Cajal (German: Rehabilitation Center Ramón y Cajal ; today: Clinica Vintersol ) opened could be.
In 1966 the municipalities of Adeje and Arona decided to create a small holiday resort on the coast north of Los Cristianos, which was to be managed jointly by both local authorities. Only the north of Tenerife, and there especially Puerto de la Cruz , was well developed for tourism at that time and had around 23,000 beds. The tourism boom at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s and the resulting building speculation led to a much faster development in Playa de las Américas than anticipated by the local councils. The bed capacity in Puerto de la Cruz was overtaken in the early 1970s. The commissioning of the southern Reina Sofia airport (1978) and the expansion of the southern motorway TF-1 to Arona and Adeje at the end of the 20th century ensured further growth spurts. Until 1999, a tourist town about 16 kilometers long had emerged between Los Cristianos and La Caleta.
From an administrative point of view, a new division of the place previously managed by Arona and Adeje was made in 1999. While the somewhat older part of Playa de las Américas was given the responsibility of Arona, the municipality of Adeje took over the administration of the district of Costa Adeje, which emerged from Las Américas.
Economy and Transport
Playa de las Américas is one of the most important tourist destinations in the Canary Islands and Spain. Accordingly, the economy and the infrastructure of the place are primarily designed to meet the needs of vacationers. The accommodation and catering establishments are important employers . The townscape is characterized by the numerous hotels, restaurants, shops for vacation and beach supplies, car rentals , travel agencies and the like. Playa de las Américas has a well-developed network of local public buses . Another popular means of transport are the numerous taxis . Due to urban development measures in the first decade of the 21st century, a large part of the freight and passenger traffic could be relocated to roads outside of the most densely built-up districts. In place of some streets, generous pedestrian zones with appropriate greenery were created.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rolf Goetz: Bildatlas Tenerife / La Palma / Gomera / Hierro . In: HB-Bildatlas . tape 323 . HB-Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-616-06582-3 , chapter Tenerife south, p. 58 .
- ^ INE Retrieved December 1, 2012 (English / Spanish).
- ↑ Pablo González Dorta: History, vintersol.org ( Memento from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Winter sun brings light. In: Sunday Times . Times Newspapers Ltd, December 18, 2004, accessed March 5, 2011 .
- ↑ a b Gottfried Aigner: Tenerife . 3. Edition. DuMont Buchverlag , 2006, ISBN 978-3-7701-5932-1 , chapter history, p. 31 .
- ↑ Los centros turísticos. In: Gran Enciclopedia Virtual Islas Canarias. Retrieved March 5, 2011 (Spanish).