The company
Explosivos Río Tinto, then directed by Mr. Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, later President of the Government, bought a 12 million square meter property, in order to destine it to a high level tourist urbanization, which it baptized as "Urbanización Costa de Teguise", which was therefore planned from the beginning as a tourist nucleus of the island. Construction began in 1970 with the first five-star hotel on Lanzarote, the Gran Meliá Salinas, designed by architect Fernando Higueras with the collaboration of local artist
César Manrique. This has been followed by many other 4 and 5 star hotels. == Beaches ==