In the current term, Arona has exceeded 100 million euros in private investment for the renovation of accommodation facilities in more than seven large establishments. The last of them, advanced by DIARIO DE AVISOS, was recently known, with the reform and requalification of the complex Mare Nostrummade up of three of the flagship hotels of the so-called golden mile of Arona, in Playa de las Américas.
This was explained by the mayor, José Julián Mena, in the official presentation of the municipality in Fitur, in which he was accompanied by the CEO of Tenerife Tourism, David Pérez; the Councilor for Tourism, José Alberto Delgado, as well as the person in charge of Sports, Francisco Marichal; the person in charge of Economic Promotion, Raquel García, and Martín Rivero, director of the flagship festival of the destination, which unites leisure and sustainability, Arona SOS Atlántico, whose 2023 edition has also been presented at Fitur.
The mayor outlined the intention of the municipality to explore congress tourism in the coming years and, for this, he added the intention of developing the future Arona Arena, with the aim of leading this product, which currently does not have the necessary infrastructures in the South.
The Arona Arena will be an iconic space to host leisure events, as well as fairs and congresses, and will be complemented by the Arona Convention Bureau brand. In addition to the Arona Arena, the Infanta Leonor Auditorium and the Playa de las Américas Pyramid will be key spaces. The current accommodation plant, as well as the new one planned in El Mojón, will allow the municipality to complete this commitment, explained Mena.
The councilor emphasized the importance for Arona of “renovating its accommodation facilities and, therefore, gaining tourism competitiveness without consuming land, but rather significantly improving the existing offer, a key effort that the private sector has made and that must be accompanied by the improvement of the public space with investments by the Public Administrations, in addition to a digital transformation that is underway, which will turn Arona into a smart tourist destination, capable of receiving information in real time and offering personalized solutions to visitors and our neighbors”.
Regarding public investment, Mena explained that the budgets of the different administrations for this year include two million euros for the first steps in the regeneration of Los Cristianos bay and Los Tarajales beach, another 80 million for the municipality’s sanitation system, with the elimination of submarine outfalls, and works such as the conditioning of Las Vistas promenade and Noelia Afonso street or the Arona coastal path.
Likewise, the councilor stressed that sustainability is a pillar that Arona has been working on since the last term and that in the coming months it is intended to deepen it with concrete actions. “One of the main projects is the expansion of the Malpaís de Rasca Special Nature Reserve, which we requested from the Cabildo several years ago and which is now on its way to being addressed by the Parliament of the Canary Islands,” he added. Likewise, he expressed that from this commitment to sustainability it follows that the main event organized by the municipality, combining it with leisure, is the Arona SOS Atlántico festival, whose 2023 guidelines were presented by its director, Martín Rivero.
Regarding digitization, both the councilor and the Councilor for Tourism stressed that the project that is being carried out by the state entity Red.es represents an investment of 2.2 million euros. Thanks to this, “Arona will have 15 weather stations and another 15 environmental sensor units to measure noise. Both are data that will feed the platform and will allow us to study the behavior of tourists and our neighbors, with the aim of giving them service solutions”, explained José Alberto Delgado.
The mayor advanced that all this “will be complemented by the creation of a digital application that will allow the generation of routes and itineraries, with special emphasis on accessibility, one of the axes of municipal action as a whole.”
tourism and sport
Both the mayor and the person in charge of Sports, Francisco Marichal, recalled “the important tourist promotion that Arona has brought in recent years as a training destination for the world’s leading athletes, such as Marcell Jacobs.
If in 2019 this tourist product left an economic return of one and a half million euros in accommodation services in Playa de las Américas, with a visitor profile with greater purchasing power than the average, throughout this year there will be an important schedule of events, among them the Surfest Las Américas Pro, one of the main competitions in the world of surfing; the National Equestrian Jumping Contest, which will take place from August 11 to 13, organized by the Los Migueles Equestrian Club and the Canarian Equestrian Federation; International Meeting of Combined Athletics Events, Las Galletas Half Marathon and the Arona-La Escalona car climb.
