The City Council of Santa Cruz and the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Canary Islands Government held a meeting on Wednesday to expose the different lines of work with a view to the recovery of two of the most important economic sectors of the capital of Tenerife, such as Tourism and Commerce. The meeting, which was attended by the Mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, the CEO of the Development Society, Alfonso Cabello, and the Minister of Tourism, Yaiza Castilla, served for both institutions to establish a series of lines of work of boost in tourism and commercial matters, in order to continue with the recovery of two key sectors for the capital of Tenerife.
The meeting offered data such as that between January and July 2021, 346,991 tourists were registered in the city, with an estimated expenditure of just over 15 million euros and an average hotel occupancy rate of 35.8%, so Implementing and launching concrete actions to reactivate the sector is essential, since it is one of the employment-generating sectors in Santa Cruz, employing some 15,000 people.
The mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, indicated that “this meeting has been very fruitful and it has also served us to expose several projects that we are working on in the capital and that can be adapted to the Next Generation European financing lines, as well as well as the specific lines that are being promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands ”.
In this way, Bermúdez explained that “this meeting was very necessary since, in difficult times like this, it is essential to establish joint lines of work to promote the tourism and commercial sectors in the capital.”
Thus, the mayor of the Tenerife capital recalled that “one of the projects that we have presented in this meeting was the Tourist Shock Plan that we have agreed with Ashotel for the last 4 months of the year, and that it will revolve around three lines of action and whose The objective is to resume the growth and development rates of the tourism sector in the municipality before the pandemic ”.
For his part, the CEO of the Development Society, Alfonso Cabello, pointed out that “we have involved the Government of the Canary Islands, through its Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, in the numerous actions that we are carrying out from the City Council as is the Tourist Shock Plan for the last 4 months of the year, which will revolve around three lines of action and which will have a budget of 600,000 euros ”.
Regarding the three lines of action of the Santa Cruz Tourist Shock Plan, Cabello recalled that “they will be focused on tourism marketing, through the promotion of the Santa Cruz accommodation facility and the destination through the main tourist operators; tourism communication and marketing actions, with a programmatic digital campaign focused on the north of the peninsula, with radio campaigns at the state level and with a presence in networks and in the regional press, and, lastly, revitalization actions that will be developed from here at the end of the year and that they have their own communication campaign “
In this sense, Alfonso Cabello explained that “according to the data managed by the Development Society, between January and July 2021 346,991 tourists were registered in the city, with an estimated expenditure of just over 15 million euros and an index of Average hotel occupancy of 35.8%, so implementing and launching concrete actions in order to reactivate the sector is essential, since it is one of the employment-generating sectors in Santa Cruz, employing some 15,000 persons”.
“Collaboration between public entities is very important at this time in order to implement actions that affect the economic recovery of the capital,” stressed Cabello, who stressed that “despite being one of the municipalities that is doing better resisting this crisis, we must work to continue improving these figures ”.
Likewise, the Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands, Yaiza Castilla, was in favor of holding new meetings with the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council to outline the needs and improvements that the municipality demands in tourism and commercial matters. In this sense, Castilla Herrera confirmed that his department will include in the 2022 budgets an item for the remodeling of the Palacio de Cartas, which will house the headquarters of the Tourism Office of the Tenerife capital. He also undertook to study new ways of financing that give a boost to strategic sectors, such as commerce, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
