The Tourism Area of the Municipality of La Laguna, directed by María José Roca, has requested that a new interurban bus line be set up to link the city with the Teide National Park, a proposal that “would allow the two spaces declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO to be joined in Tenerife and promote the use of public transport when traveling to two places that are a must for millions of tourists every year”, as the mayor assured. This demand has also been included in the allegations to the Master Plan for the Use and Management of the Park due to the possible limitation of the number of visitors. Tourism of La Laguna claims that there is a guaranteed quota for this route that also allows promoting combined visits to the Historic Site and Mount Teide with more sustainable transport systems.
The councilor, also responsible for the areas of Sustainable Mobility and Commerce, explains that “although we are one of the must-see places for tourists arriving on the Island, one of the pending issues that clearly affects our offer tourism is the handicap caused by our lack of connectivity in public transport with the great tourist attraction of Tenerife, the Teide National Park.
In this sense, he points out that “people who plan their stay in Tenerife encounter problems in linking the stay in the Historic Complex of La Laguna with the visit to the National Park, since the only option currently offered is to move to the Orotava Valley to access Teide from there». “This makes many visitors decide not to do both visits, being forced to choose one or the other,” he added. Roca claims the commissioning of this line, which “would take advantage of the current and only road connection between the Metropolitan Area and the National Park, one of the busiest”, joining the transport hub of the only World Heritage City in the Canary Islands and also favoring a reduction in the volume of private vehicles.
It also wants this demand to also be incorporated into the future Master Plan for the Use and Management of the National Park, for which Tourism de La Laguna has registered the consequent allegations to the document, currently in the first phase of public exposure, specifically to section 6.2.2 of the document that regulates the organization of visits to the park. In this draft it is determined that limit values will be established for the number of visitors, especially in concentration points and sensitive places, and the expansion of electronic reservation systems is foreseen, which will include those of guided visits, to which La Laguna claims that the incorporation of a quota to the future Titsa lines between La Laguna and Teide be contemplated, which “we hope will start up before the Master Plan is approved”, concluded Roca.
