«Tenerife reinforces its leadership in tourism by being the venue for top-level international meetings.” With this sentence, the president of the Cabildo, Peter Martinthe choice of the Island as the venue for the general assembly of the European Travel Commission, which will bring together representatives of 33 European countries and 14 of the main companies linked to the activity and tourism sector in November of next year.
Pedro Martín assures that this decision, announced yesterday by Turespaña, “supports the work we have been doing to promote new tourism strategies linked to sustainability and digitization.” In addition, he emphasizes, “it places us at the center of the international debate in a key sector for the economy.” Martín emphasizes the professionalism of the sector, which makes the Island a competitive destination of the highest level.
The insular president points out that «This continental meeting in Tenerife brings us a little closer to being able to host the headquarters of the European Tourism Agency, an issue that we requested from the Government a year ago and subsequently reinforced in the Plenary of the Island Corporation ».
Pedro Martín stresses that “Tenerife has a lot of interest and more than enough reasons to host this body, so we have transferred our willingness to provide all the resources that are necessary to finish promoting it.”
excellent infrastructure
In this sense, Pedro Martín values ”the excellent infrastructures that the Island has to host high-level meetings, as well as its accommodation offer, with the highest concentration of four and five-star hotels in all of Europe.”
In the same way, he highlights the leadership of Tenerife in issues such as air connectivity, with 110 routes in 25 countries, and emphasizes “the robust air network of our Island, with two international airports that accommodate more than seven million passengers per year”, in addition to connections with ports around the world.
Among other recent milestones, Pedro Martín recalls that Turismo de Tenerife is an affiliate member of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) since December 2021.
In addition, the Island will host the World Summit 2024, where for the third time in history the state of the art of tourism will be debated. “This event, which will have experts from all over the world, will allow us to continue projecting the Island at an international level and is another example of how Tenerife is leading and leading tourism actions worldwide,” explains Pedro Martín.
This global meeting is also driven by the University of La Laguna (ULL), together with other international organizations and institutions.
As the general director of Turespaña, Miguel Sanz, explained in his statement, holding the General Assembly of the European Travel Commission “represents an international projection and an opportunity to reaffirm our leadership position in terms of tourism.” “Tenerife will be the center of the debate for the recovery and the design of new strategies in the face of the new tourism,” says Sanz.
In addition, the senior manager of the national sector adds that those who attend this meeting “will have an excellent opportunity to learn first-hand what Spain and Tenerife are doing, in particular, to increase the value of our products, the efforts and progress as a destination and sustainable and intelligent, without losing our identity”.
Sanz concludes: “Europe is our main strategic market and Spain, as the most competitive country in the world in tourism and the second most visited, has the obligation to lead this transformation of the sector.”
European capital of tourism
D.From November 22 to 24, 2023, Tenerife will be in charge of hosting the General Assembly of the European Travel Commission (ETC). It is the only association of national tourism promotion authorities in Europe.
For three days, the Island will bring together the national tourism offices of 33 European countries, including Spain, and will bring together around 100 personalities from the European sector -among them the general directors and CEOs of most tourism agencies promotion of the continent–, as well as 14 associated tourism companies, such as Expedia, Google, AirBnB, Value Retail, Amadeus or Adara.
The event will be organized by the Spanish Tourism Institute (Turespaña), which is participating in this Assembly, in collaboration with the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands.
Promotion with events and specialists
Tenerife bases its tourism strategy on positioning through the holding of international events or the presence of professionals specialized in the sector. In this way, the Island will be the first destination in Spain to host the Giro d’Italia Ride Like a Pro, a cycling tour that takes place next Saturday and Sunday in Adeje and Arona. Some 750 cyclists of more than 20 nationalities are registered in the test. The insular director of Tourism, Laura Castro, highlights that “during the first semester of this year, a total of 53,654 tourists practiced cycling or mountain biking while taking advantage of their vacations on the Island.” The other recipients of the promotion are tourism professionals or the parallel audiovisual sector. This is the meaning of the presence of a group of specialized visitors from the US who surveyed the filming locations in Tenerife. They participated in a guided tour of the main streets and monuments of the municipalities of Santa Cruz, Garachico and La Laguna. They also visited the Teide, Anaga, Las Teresitas and Las Gaviotas National Parks. So far this year, the Island has hosted five North American productions, among which the filming of the second season of Foundation, on Apple TV, and the last season of Jack Ryan stand out. In 2021, Tenerife hosted 190 filmings, which generated more than 8,500 jobs and spending on the Island of almost 60 million euros.
