Finally it’s official, any bar, restaurant or business owner could have told you that Tenerife tourism has been on the slide for the last few years, now official government figures confirm that.

The number of foreign (non Spanish) tourists for the first 6 months of this year was down by 4.3% for the whole of Tenerife. That’s a drop of 94,000 less visitors made up of 51,000 Brits, 23,000 Scandinavians and 19,000 Germans. Breaking that down in the main resorts of the south, that’s a loss of 3.8% in Adeje and 3.7% in Arona. Even now the Cabildo (Tenerife government) is complacent. The minister for Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Jose Manuel Bermudez, tried to put some spin on the figures by saying that they looked bad because there were record highs for the same 6 months last year.

The picture is the same across the 7 Canary Islands with a drop of 200,000 overall and only Fuerteventura bucking the trend with a rise of 32,000.

At the risk of being lynched by readers in the UK, can I say how badly we need some rain here in Tenerife. Someone reported a U.F.O the other day, but turned out it was just a cloud.

Latest government figures suggest that the 23 resevoirs on the island are on average, just 30 per cent full and there is only enough water to meet demands until November. Strangely the lowest and highest levels are in the same municipality, Granadilla, San Isidro is at 64 per cent full and El Saltadero is a mere 10 per cent full.

It’s not only the hot weather that has drained the water but also the recent fires that ravaged the north west of the island, vast loads of water were used to dowse the flames.

It all takes me back to the UK drought of 1976, yes they did have summers then. One of the water saving suggestions was to share a bath, mmmmmmmmm sounds good, now all I have to do is convince some poor lady that it really is for the good of the Tenerife environment.