Today is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Gran Tinerfe, the first hotel built in Playa de Las Américas, which became the beacon of the intentions of Catalan industrialist Rafael Puig Llivina, and his son Santiago Puig Serratusell, to create a major tourist destination in the south of the island in the middle of a desert.
Puig arrived in Tenerife in 1965 and fell in love with the island, and after the approval of the first and second phases of the Playa de Las Américas Urbanisation Plan in 1968, which saw the construction of the first apartments in the area: Acapulco, Copacabana, Viña del Mar, Bungamérica, Troya, and Paraíso del Sol, decided to attract investors to build four-star hotels to add value to the area and attract a more select visitor profile.
The strategy paid off and the Gran Tinerfe began to be built by businessman Cándido Luis García Sanjuán, owner of the emblematic Tenerife Playa hotel, which opened in Puerto de la Cruz in the early 1960s.
His involvement had special value as he was the only hotelier with interests in the north of the island who envisioned prosperity in the south. Most businessmen, even having liquidity, experience and contacts with tour operators, let the opportunity pass, because they did not fully believe in the future of the area in Adeje and Arona.
The Puig family put an offer to García Sanjuán that he couldn’t refuse, selling him the land next to Bobo beach for 500 pesetas (3 euros) per square metre, with all the basic services installed. However, it was one thing to buy the site and another for the huge economic effort involved in building an emblematic hotel.
Although its design wasn’t ground breaking, the magnitude of the construction became a symbol of modernisation for the region, and the 360-room Gran Tinerfe opened its doors on 10th July 1972, with its two lake-shaped pools designed by the legendary artist from Lanzarote, César Manrique.
A few months after its opening, the hotel received a visit that meant great support for the new tourist destination of Tenerife, when the then Prince of Spain, Juan Carlos and Sofía, stayed in its facilities for four days, with his three children.
The Gran Tinerfe was the magnet that Santiago Puig needed to attract new investors. The following two hotels didn’t take long to arrive: the Troya in 1973 built by the Barcelona-based hotel chain Hesperia, and the Europa, at the end of 1974, thanks to the investment of the German businessman Karl F. Gassmann and his son Axel.
The Gran Tinerfe and surrounding hotels in 1976
But long before the foundations for the hotel and non-hotel facilities in Playa de Las Américas were laid, hard work had to be done, starting from scratch to lay the foundations for the basic infrastructure of the resort.
In June 1966, the company Playa de Las Américas SA was incorporated and work began at a frenetic pace at a time when Central European and Nordic tourism was beginning to fill the incipient accommodation facilities on the Mediterranean coast and in Puerto de la Cruz.
The Puig family took over the installation of water pipes, ceded two plots of land to Telefónica and to the electricity company Unelco for the installation of a power plant and a substation, and participated in the construction of two treatment plants, and planted 5,000 palm trees imported from Elche in mainland Spain.
Given the economic precariousness of the municipalities, in the following 15 years, he faced all the necessary fronts to guarantee the viability of the project. In addition to selling plots, looking for and trying to convince developers, Santiago Puig supplied the water, covered the costs of public lighting, planted green areas, paved streets, and took care of the sewage system and pumping stations.
Today, 50 years after the opening of its first hotel, Playa de Las Américas is one of the main tourist destinations in Spain and Europe. A reality that was difficult to imagine when Rafael Puig Llivina and his son Santiago landed for the first time in Tenerife after the director of a Barcelona bank suggested the Catalan industrialist explore the possibility of developing the south of Tenerife for tourism.
Previously, the builder Luis Díaz de Losada and the landowner Antonio Domínguez Alfonso had told the Catalan banker their intention to carry out a project that sounded reckless and that required a brave, almost heroic, investor. The rest, as they say, is history!
