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Tavío’s Tenerife visionAntonio Tavío Peña, president of Amarilla Golf, is a man with ambition. His list of business credits include the first golf course in the south of Tenerife and a multi million marina in San Miguel de Abona. And his next project? Skiing holidays in Tenerife. Yes, skiing!
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 | | Antonio Tavío Peña, president of Amarilla golf and country club |
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28.07.2005 - Born and bred in Tenerife, at 66 years old Tavío should be putting his feet up and playing golf with his buddies, but instead he is president of one of the largest golf and country clubs in the Canaries. He’s also about to open one of the most expensive marinas in the archipelago. He has been a pivotal player in the development of tourism in Tenerife, believing the island has a great deal more to offer yet. In fact, his ambitious plans involve constructing a ski slope to entice winter sports tourists to Tenerife.
As we chat to him, he comes across as a man who cares passionately about the future of his homeland and who is desperate to see its development into one of the top tourist destinations in the world. He seems a man with a vision, at times misunderstood by island and local authorities, who truly believes his ambitious plans are for the good of everyone who lives in the archipelago.
Tavío was born in 1939 in Santa Cruz to an agricultural family from the south that had a string of very successful enterprises. More than eight generations of his family can be traced to the Canaries, with Guanche ancestral roots. One of five children, four boys and a girl, he remembers his mum being a strong matriarch who definitely ruled the roost, “not like the women of today,” he chuckles. He studied medicine at Oxford university, but after a few years he realised a life in business was calling and gave up the idea of being a doctor. “My father taught me more than I learnt at university. He got me involved from a very young age in the running of the business and making deals. It was from him that I learnt the basics of good business.”
His father certainly had great confidence in his young son making him manager of his brick factory at just 21 years old. The entrepreneur then spotted his first independent business opportunity in the property market and hasn’t looked back since.
“After trying my hand at several businesses I began to realise ‘elite sports’ were an important area in the development of the Canaries.” He would define elite sports as those that traditionally entice people with the financial means, such as golf, sailing and horse riding, the three sports that the man himself has a passion for. He emphatically denied being a good golf player, having a handicap of 24, but his son José Antonio did tell us that his father had a mean swing! But Tavío has no time to practice his hobbies, “unfortunately the circus master cannot play with the lions!” But it was definitely his love of golf that inspired him to build the Amarilla complex.
The philosophy came from the American model of golf courses, with an entire infrastructure within the actual course, to create a country club with housing, leisure complexes and many different sporting facilities. Inaugurated in 1989, every year a new phase has been added with development continually occurring to the plot measuring around two million metres squared. The 18 hole course is being complemented with another 18 holes, with plans to provide accommodation for up to 10,000 people. Facilities include a driving range, nine hole pitch and putt, equestrian centre, swimming pool, tennis court, pro shop, bar and restaurant. All the houses have a maximum of two storeys to keep the beautiful sea views. A lot of work has been done to improve the infrastructure with access roads and connection to the electrical grid and telephone lines.
The latest project in Tavío’s dream is the addition of the San Miguel marina. Due to be open at the end of this summer, it has taken five years to complete with an investment Tavío declined to put a figure on, but unquestionably a vast amount of money. The marina is 27 metres deep, a kilometre long and has 325 berths for boats over 10 metres in length. Tavío’s son, José Antonio showed us around, explaining that the complex will include a commercial centre with coastal walkways and shops for tourists. 16,000 concrete blocks had to be dropped into the sea to create the marina which they hope will attract sailing boats and be able to provide a new base for sailing holidays.
The Amarilla president is very proud of the new marina but he says its completion comes with a price, as authorities have only granted the leasehold for 30 years, which he says, “doesn’t compensate the huge investment we have made.”
But he is happy with the positive impact he believes the port will have for tourism in the south and the opportunity to entice more tourism in the area.
The marina is surely one of the highlights of his career but he talks with regret at not being able to complete his initial plans for the complex. “I wanted to make Amarilla an entirely self sufficient entity, reliable on wind and sun energy, using the horse manure to produce vegetables, cultivating fish in small farms off the coast with absolutely no need for outside services.” He claims the project was stopped by bureaucracy and the lack of understanding of his plans.
Confrontation with the authorities has been a constant thorn in Tavío’s side, including a lengthy battle between himself and both the town hall of San Miguel de Abona and the island council. He has claimed that both consistently hindered his attempts to improve and extend the development of the Amarilla complex and allegations were made some years ago that a relative of a Cabildo politician earned a healthy profit from the reclassification of neighbouring farmland for building. The High Court eventually ruled that the authorities did nothing wrong. Tavío now wants to put the whole affair behind him, simply classifying the battle as a misunderstanding in which, “the cabildo wanted to impose too many tight deadlines on my ambitious plan.”
The idea of bringing skiing to Tenerife has also come up against staunch criticism, and as we ask the businessman about the plans you can sense a frustration that people cannot understand his good-willed desire to bring development to the land that he loves. “It’s a very simple idea,” he tells us, “if we could bring just one per 10,000 people who go to the ski runs of Europe for holidays every winter, it would be a great investment for the island.”
It sounds like an unbelievable idea, ski slopes in Tenerife, a destination better known for beach and sun holidays. But after studies into minimum temperatures on the island he discovered that in the centre there are temperatures less than zero where snow could be generated by condensing cloud water for up to eight months of the year. He believes this is an extraordinary opportunity for Tenerife. “We would also have the extra novelty of offering skiing in the morning and swimming in the sea in the afternoon. It would be a great pull to the island.”
Plans were being drawn up for a ski complex in Güímar with bobsleigh and an open-air ice rink, but Tavío labels the short-sightedness of some on the island as an obstacle to further development and at present the plan is on hold. Strong criticism also came from ecological groups, who he labels as, “false ecological groups who are against any kind of elite sports in general because they themselves don’t have the means to practice them.” The plan has not been forgotten however, and he hopes that his children will be able to complete this vision.
‘Tavío’s vision’ is definitely the best way to describe this man’s plans. He talks with pride of the island, it’s people and his projects, always in his mind trying to help the greater good than line his own pockets. He wants Tenerife to become one of the top holiday destinations in the world, but to do this he believes changes have to be made. “We have to always go forwards, there’s no good returning to the mountains on our donkeys.”
To Tavío, modernisation is the key, with emphasis on quality and not quantity. But he believes there are many people against change. He shows us a tree on the complex full of birds and says, “before there was no bird life or wild life here at all, no water supply. But now there is birdlife all around, creating a whole new ecosystem. But people say it’s artificial, but all life is artificial in a way. We have to move forward, and improve what we have.”
Despite believing in modernisation, Tavío has always held fast to his good old fashioned values, being a devoted family man with seven children, he is soon to celebrate being married 40 years. One of the keys to his continued business success he believes is making it a family affair. He is proud to have four of his children working with him at Amarilla and he says this gives his business security, “because you know your family care about what they are doing.”
Though he has remained president of Amarilla, he has tried to gradually hand over the reins to his children, preferring to spend more time relaxing with family and friends. His favourite place in Tenerife is the Monte del Agua, in the high part of Los Silos, because it reminds him of Sherbourne in England with all the beautiful flowers and birds.
He has placed a high value on the education of his children, sending each one to university in England, all seven of them are bilingual. He has tried to instil the value of honesty and is very proud of what they have achieved. One of his daughters, Cristina Tavío, is president of Partido Popular in Tenerife and a Santa Cruz councillor. In a recent interview with Diario de Avisos, Cristina Tavío said she learnt a great deal from both her mother and father, and that her family have always been one that gets involved in everything, “never turning their back on their responsibilities.”
Success to Antonio Tavío Peña is much more than what he has achieved financially, “success includes the way you behave, what you have created in your life, the legacy you leave behind. I have a family and have been married for 40 years. Those things are more important.”
The most valued lesson he has learnt in business is to keep things simple, “if you complicate ideas and plan too much, you’ll get a boomerang effect and the problems will come back to you.” But he also believes in ambition, which is why he thinks many women are now becoming so successful in business because they have a natural tendency to be ambitious.
And what is has been the proudest moment in his career? He thinks for a moment and a smile appears on his face, and with a laugh he emphatically states, “probably, not becoming involved in politics!”
By Catherine Jeans
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