He La Laguna City Councilthrough the Department of Commerce and Business Association La Laguna Commercial Zone and with the support of the Federation of Urban Areas of the Canary Islands (FAUCA)has presented this week the awards for the San Benito Abad 2023 Tapa Route. The Golden Tapa went to the Gulagú restaurant, while the Maquila and Ca’Zona establishments were awarded the silver and bronze awards, respectively.
The mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, presented these recognitions at the facilities of the Municipal Corporation and highlighted that “this year there were 41 establishments participating in one of the most anticipated events with the gastronomy and tradition of the municipality.”
For her part, the councilor responsible for the Area, Leticia Villegas, stressed that “the level of participation has multiplied exponentially in this fifteenth edition since, from the 1,182 participants of the previous edition, this year it has increased to a total of 4,083. people who cast their vote through the APP.”
For its part, compared to the approximately 120,000 tapas of the last edition, in this fifteenth edition nearly 195,000 tapas were sold which, at the single price of four euros each, represent a total of about 780,000 euros that have served as an economic injection during the month of July for businesses in the municipality that joined the initiative.
Tapas in La Laguna
The Tapa Route through San Benito Abad once again provided the opportunity to taverns, restaurants and cafes in the city to offer their customers culinary creations in which the tradition of their gastronomy can be combined with the innovation and creativity of the contemporary kitchen. All this, in a unique heritage environment, showing its culinary proposals, both to the citizens of the municipality, as well as to visitors from other parts of the island and tourists.
The president of FAUCA, Abbas Moujir, has stressed that “the Tapa Route through La Laguna San Benito Abad 2023 is endorsed by entities such as Interreg or City Plus, through the City+ project, so it has taken a qualitative leap by becoming “in a reference project that crosses our borders, in regions such as Cape Verde or Azores, becoming, therefore, a model of good practices and an activity to be developed in other regions of Macaronesia.”
Moujir highlights that, “it is essential that both public and private agents continue to join forces to promote campaigns such as the San Benito Tapa Route, which continues to become one of the most anticipated gastronomic events in the summer, contributing to promoting and to give greater visibility to one of the main economic sectors of the city, such as restaurants. All of this, he concludes, makes the La Laguna Open Commercial Zone a benchmark.”
For his part, Iván Pérez asserts that “at LLZC we are very satisfied with the way in which the participating businesses have been involved in the initiative, which has turned our city into an unmissable event for Tenerife residents, visitors and tourists, during the month of July”.
In this sense, the president of LLZC highlights, from “our business association we are working, side by side with FAUCA and with the support of local administrations, to turn La Laguna into the epicenter of gastronomy and commerce of the Archipelago, designing both specific projects that adapt to the needs and demands of each moment, and others that, as is the case with the Tapa Route, are consolidated year after year in the citizens’ leisure agenda. All of this, he maintains, “gives us a prominent role as generators of cultural activity and economic revitalization.”
Participation through the LLZC APP
It is worth remembering that, in the latest editions of the Tapa Route through La Laguna – San Benito Abad, the use of new technologies for this initiative has been advocated. The novelty this year is that the La Laguna Commercial Zone Business Association has its own web application, https://app.lalagunazonacomercial.com, which currently has about 3,500 users. Through this APP, the public was able to consult online all the information about the businesses participating in the route, view a map of them or, among other aspects, see the description and photograph of each tapa.
Likewise, through this application, users voted to choose their favorite tapa, which gave them the option to participate in the draw for three gift vouchers worth 100 euros each, which they can redeem at the three winning establishments. this edition.
