In 2022, more than two million tourists visited Santa Cruz, and 400,000 of them were cruise passengers. Yesterday, the Santa Cruz City Council, aware of the importance that this type of tourism has for the city, chose the AIDAnova cruise ship, docked in the port of the capital, to present the Santa Cruz Strategic Tourism Plan 2023-2027, a document that brings together an investment of 100 million euros in different programs and actions, with the aim of adapting the city to this flow of visitors.
Both the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and the Councilor for Economic Promotion, Alfonso Cabello, reviewed the projects underway, and also some of the objectives to be achieved with this document.
The Plan presented yesterday is made up of six strategic axes that cover different areas of action in the municipality’s tourism offer, among which are: innovation, technology, tourism quality, competitiveness, professionalism, governance, tourism intelligence and sustainability. Around these axes 27 programs revolve, which, in turn, land in 169 actions that have to do, for example, with promoting convention tourism, a line of work that, as Cabello advanced in the presentation, has a budget of about 300,000 euros.
Another of the actions that will be launched more immediately would be to value the information about sculptures in the street and turn it into an attraction for visitors, through QR codes or similar technology. The development of the city’s own merchandising for sale through an online store, or the empowerment of the Santa Cruz Film Office, with the creation of a brand to attract filming, are also among the actions to be carried out.
Promoting international sports events, cruise tourism or cultural events in the city stand out among the lines of action.
Bermúdez defended that this document will come to reinforce the achievement of having turned Santa Cruz “into a tourist capital of a tourist island, because this is already a reality.” The mayor spoke of promoting what to see and what to do in Santa Cruz. Regarding the first, he reviewed the projects underway, such as the Masonic Temple, the Palacio de Carta, the Viera y Clavijo or the rehabilitation of the Castillo de San Andrés. “There are more than 30 million mobilized to value our heritage, but it is also important that any investment we make serves to add value to the city, either through improving bathing areas or improving our parks and gardens with a new contract”, said Bermúdez. In the section on what to do, Carnival ranks first, but the mayor also spoke about the Gesta of July 25, Tecnológica, Fimucité or the Santa Cruz International Marathon.
move along
For his part, the CEO of Sociedad de Desarrollo, Alfonso Cabello, stated that “this Strategic Plan should help us to advance in a more significant way, such as, for example, in the cruise segment, which is growing as shows that in the last four-month period of the year it grew by 25% over the data from 2019”. Likewise, he added that, “in addition, the expectation for the next six months calculates to account for another 400,000 people who will arrive in the city aboard 139 boats, so continuing to work in a coordinated manner with a plan grounded in actions is vital to achieve that objective”.
The action plan is biannual. Of the objectives set, it is expected that in 2023 at least 79 specific actions can be executed.
The municipality has up to 172 points of tourist interest
“We have a very complete tourism sector. To put it in some way, we are multi-product, with 172 points of tourist interest in the municipality, so we have to take advantage of that,” said Cabello. In addition, he announced that the Strategic Tourism Plan is expected to be approved next Monday at the Governing Board. Once approved, the actions contained in the 27 programs that make up the document can begin to be implemented, ranging from improving mobility, increasing public-private collaboration or promoting the different types of cars that come together in the city, such as sports, nature, culture or shopping.
