SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 4 (EUROPA PRESS) –
La Laguna will continue to preside over the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain (GCPHE) until July 2024, as decided by the Assembly of Mayors of the Group held this Saturday in the city of Córdoba. In this way, the usual time frame of the presidencies is recovered, which was altered in 2020 due to the pandemic.
The mayor of La Laguna and president of the GCPHE, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, has valued this measure “which facilitates the organization of the Group, adapting it to the times of the political course, and gives coherence to the work of the presidencies, so that its management can have a continuity.
The mayor thanked the support for this proposal, which “recovers a formula that has been shown to work very well, but which had been modified in recent years due to the pandemic.”
La Laguna assumed the responsibility of chairing the GCPHE on January 1st. Usually, the period of the presidency had been from July 1 to June 30 of the following year, but in 2020 Ibiza extended its presidency for another six months, as a way of compensating for the limitations to which it had been forced by the pandemic, in order to so that the following cities (Mérida and Salamanca), held the presidency from January 1 to December 31. Now, the management of the Group will recover its old periodicity.
La Laguna will also host the Assembly of the Group again at the beginning of June, as it happened in March 2022. Among the outstanding acts of this call is the Extraordinary Concert for which HM Queen Sofía has been invited , who has traditionally been supporting this type of cultural initiatives of the Group with his presence.
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION.
The Assembly of Córdoba has also approved a series of actions in heritage, cultural and tourism promotion matters. In this regard, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez explained at the subsequent press conference that in the coming months the Group will promote itself at international fairs in Berlin, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Singapore.
In addition, the Group is working with Chinese tour operators to promote a campaign focused on attracting this type of tourist through a range of services adapted to their reality. “We believe that the commitment to the Chinese market is strategic for the Group of World Heritage Cities with a great projection for the future,” said the mayor of La Laguna.
Luis Yeray Gutiérrez has added that the Group will also make presentations in international markets with Turespaña and Paradores in Belgium and Porto and, in addition, it will carry out other promotional events with Madrid Destino, in northern Europe, specifically in Stockholm and Copenhagen.
A delegation from the Group is also going to carry out a good practices trip to Bordeaux, on March 13 and 14. The Group will renew the collaboration agreements with Paradores, Madrid Destino and Ciudades AVE. In addition, the Group is going to sign another agreement with the ACS Foundation to organize a conference in Tarragona on ‘Heritage Cities and Accessibility’ in autumn.
Similarly, the renewal of the agreement with ONCE has been approved “to continue improving accessibility, which is one of the great challenges facing Heritage Cities: the conservation of our historic quarters with measures to make it easier for any person with disabilities to can fully enjoy them”, said Luis Yeray Gutiérrez.
30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GROUP
The president has highlighted that they are working on the organization of the 30th anniversary of the Group, whose celebrations will take place from September 17, 2023 to September 17, 2024, and the agenda of acts and events will be known at the next Assembly in June in La Laguna, on June 3 and 4, where the Cathedral of La Laguna will also host this year’s extraordinary concert.
Luis Yeray Gutiérrez has also advanced that work is being done on the marketing of Heritage Cities tour packages, with trips and routes in these cities under the World Heritage seal, with a large national tour operator and travel agent, for which they are already maintaining meetings to implement it.
Today’s Assembly has also approved the events planned for this year, such as the IV Racing Circuit in World Heritage Cities. The national presentation of the Circuit will be held on March 8 in La Laguna, with the president of the Group, and the first race will be on March 18 in Úbeda.
Among the great cultural events of the year for this year are the celebration of La Noche del Patrimonio, on Saturday, September 16, this year with an eye on America through the incorporation of some World Heritage cities from Mexico, Peru and Cuba, thanks to the alliances with the associations of those countries, which will organize an event that night to symbolically join the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Group.
The 10th edition of the Chamber Music Cycle in World Heritage Cities, in collaboration with the Reina Sofía School of Music, is another of the Group’s cultural events of the year. Finally, the Aula Patrimonio contest has had the participation of 21 schools from 11 cities. The ‘Your City, Your Heritage’ program, aimed at students in Compulsory Secondary Education and Basic Vocational Training, will end on April 21, 2023.
