SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Board of Directors of the public company Turismo de Islas Canarias, dependent on the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands, approved this Monday the action plan for 2023, budgeted at 61,560,527 euros and which establishes eight transversal axes that pursue digital leadership, the connection with the tourist and the improvement of the tourist product, among other goals.
“We work to enhance the capacity of tourism to benefit the economy and the citizens of the Canary Islands, making the rest of the economic sectors take better advantage of the traction that it can offer in terms of wealth generation, employment and social well-being, extending its value chain and enhancing its capacity for innovation”, says the Minister of Tourism, Yaiza Castilla.
The strategic framework for action of Turismo de Islas Canarias is defined in its Strategic Planning Instrument (IPE) 2022-2024, which in turn develops and formalises the Canarias Destino strategy.
This roadmap began to be implemented in 2021 with the purpose of “promoting the transformation of the Canary Islands tourism model to improve its resilience, in addition to increasing its commitment to climate neutrality, in line with the 2030 Agenda and the expectations of the tourists themselves. and residents”, explains the counselor in a note.
The eight axes start with digital leadership, “conceived not only as the necessary technology to improve promotion, but as the key element to guarantee competitiveness,” Castilla clarifies.
Achieving this leadership implies, among other actions, the creation and promotion of a unique digital platform for the Canarian tourism ecosystem as a whole, facilitating visibility, marketing opportunities, access to suppliers, among other actions.
The second axis deals with the direct connection with the visitor since “the heart of all tourist activity is concentrated in the desires and emotions of tourists, if capacities are not developed to be relevant in this delicate territory of intangibles, no strategy will be able to make up for it,” says the counselor.
SEGMENTATION AND PERSONALIZATION
The plan emphasizes the importance of knowing and responding to the interests and expectations of these visitors through the incorporation of data unification and attribution technologies that improve the concept of segmentation and bet on personalization.
The third axis is led by knowledge management, with access to information and its transformation into value as a powerful competitive tool and the purpose of turning tourism intelligence into a strength.
The improvement of the tourist product through innovation, creativity and technology constitutes the fourth axis.
“The international leadership achieved by the Canary Islands owes a lot to its exceptional natural and climatic conditions, but also to the vision of many people and organizations with an entrepreneurial spirit”, recalls Castilla, who also points out that “the participation of innovation institutes, universities and other of entities, professionals and experts, and the involvement of the talent of the Canarian society will enrich the process of transformation of the tourism model of the islands”.
The fifth axis focuses on the extension and cohesion of the value chain, thereby increasing the presence of the Canarian component in all tourist services, from accommodation to restaurants or leisure.
Constant learning is the focus of the sixth axis, in order to face a situation of high uncertainty and a scenario of constant change, enhancing adaptation capacities based on the anticipation of international trends.
The next axis is the empowerment of destiny. Within a globalized industry in which destinations have traditionally been in a position subject to external objectives, the challenge of achieving a greater degree of control of the entire tourism production process from cooperation with the rest of the agents involved is posed. , influence from the Ministry.
PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATION
The last axis is co-governance and public-public and public-private collaboration, necessary to consolidate the diversity of the archipelago as a strength and not a weakness that leads to dispersion of efforts, waste of resources and inefficiencies.
The unanimously approved 2023 Action Plan is divided into four strategic areas, the first of which is to improve the offer, with a budget of 14.6 million (23.8% of the total).
It is made up of two action programs: environmental sustainability (1.9 million) and tourism product improvement (12.6 million), which includes sponsorship of events at the destination, with 10 million.
The second area is demand generation and communication, which has 28.9 million (47.1% of the total). It has three action programs: the promotion aimed at the end customer (23.5 million), with specific segments in addition to sun and beach plus; promotion aimed at professionals (3.5 million); and corporate communication and social responsibility, with 1.8 million.
The demand management area has a budget of 5.2 million (8.5% of the total) divided into two actions, marketing on the supplier side (890,000 euros) and marketing on the tourist side (4.3 million), focused on visitor service, their loyalty and the improvement of their experience.
In fourth place is the support area, with 8.2 million (13.3% of the total) divided into three programs: digitization and technology (4.1 million), connectivity improvement (1.7 million) and intelligence tourism and planning (2.3 million).
Finally, to these four areas are added the operating costs, which account for 7.1% of the total budget, with 4.4 million euros.
AUDITED ACCOUNTS WITHOUT PROVISIONS
The Board of Directors also unanimously approved both the management report and the 2022 Canary Islands Tourism accounts, which were audited without exceptions.
“The independent auditors confirm, for yet another year, that the company’s accounting reflects the true image of the work we have carried out,” says the managing director of Tourism of the Canary Islands, José Juan Lorenzo.
For Lorenzo, over the last few years the foundations have been laid so that “the Canary Islands continue to be a leading destination in digital marketing”, something that was demonstrated in 2022, when more than 2,000 million advertising impacts were launched, 84, 4% more than the previous year, and more than 9,000 ad groups were developed, 70.4% more than in 2021.
“Not only must we maintain our leadership in this area, through a high investment effort, but we must also emphasize the empowerment of the destination, through the intelligent use and control of data, which in turn allows us to personalize our offer”, explains the managing director.
Lorenzo makes it clear that now is the time for “the Canarias Destino strategy, in its second year of application, to begin to materialize and offer its first tangible results, especially in terms of reducing the carbon footprint of the tourism sector as a whole. it means”.
A path in which the islands, he commented, “walk with an advantage over other destinations thanks to the fact that we not only adhered to the Glasgow Declaration, but we did so with a complete Master Climate Action Plan that has numerous tools that we are going to offer small and medium-sized companies a free way to accompany them on their journey towards decarbonization”.
