Calvià at the World Travel Market.

 

Tuesday 7th November 2017


CALVIÀ PROVES AT THE WORLD TRAVEL MARKET OF LONDON ITS REPOSITIONING AS A TOURIST DESTINATION THAT PROGRESSES IN QUALITY


The Mayor of Calvià has held various meetings within the framework of the tourist fair in which the Alliance of 8 Tourist Municipalities has marked the roadmap of its most immediate actions

 

Calvià attends the London tourist fair, noting that the road that it has taken towards improving the quality of the destination is reaching the British market, which already recognises the change that is taking place thanks to the measures that have been adopted, such as the change of municipal ordinances to eradicate tourism of excesses, and collaboration with the private initiative that is improving the hotel sector. 

This is one of the issues that the director of the Tourism Office in London, Javier Piñanes, has transferred to the mayor of Calvià, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, in one of the meetings he has held at the London tourist fair. Piñanes has affirmed that the British TTOO not only begin to talk about the change in Magaluf, but they set it as an example of how a zone is being reconverted in a short time, ensuring that they value and appreciate the change.

The director of the Tourism Office in London, on the other hand, has estimated in 22 percent the growth in tourist package reservations in Mallorca, during the winter months, from November to April, a figure that the Mayor has described as very positive given that it responds to the efforts that are being made to diversify the product and lengthen the season. In this sense, at the meeting he has had with the representatives of the sports tourism division of Jet 2, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal has highlighted the important commitment that Calvià is making for this product, which only in the middle-low season is for Calvià an economic impact of more than 9.5 million euros, without counting on cycle tourism or golf tourism. 

The work programme in WTM of the delegation of Calvià, also integrated by the General Director of Tourism and Strategic Projects of the Town Hall, Joan Mesquida, has continued with a meeting with Heather Pennock of ABTA. The representative of the British Travel Agencies employers has been interested to know more on the measures that have been adopted from the Balearic Islands, after the detection of several cases of Legionnaire's disease, at the same time that she has explained the informative actions that they address to their clients to avoid false reports of intoxication, which is having criminal consequences. 

The activity of the Mayor in London began on Monday afternoon with a meeting with British media specialised in tourism, at the Melià group stand.


Renovation, greater financing and evolve as smart tourist destinations


Within the framework of the London tourist fair, the
Alliance of the 8 touristic municipalities of which Calvià is part, together with Salou, Benidorm, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Lloret de Mar, Torremoloinos, Adeje and Arona, has also met. 

In March of this year, they made the milestone, unprecedented in Spain, to constitute a common platform with the objective of analysing their challenges as destinations, exchanging experiences and knowledge from their uniqueness and proposing strategies to reorient and drive the progress of the tourist 'Sun and beach' segment. When it is not yet ten months of that step, the Alliance of Sun and Beach Tourist Municipalities (AMT) has already drawn the road map of their shared priorities, which go through 'enhancing their plans for renewal and comprehensive reconversion as destinations', 'vindicate a new specific financing system' and seek financial support with technological destination to 'evolve towards the intelligent tourist destinations model (DTI)'.


The roadmap has been adopted today at the meeting held by the entity at the WTM in London, in which the president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), Juan Molas has served as host, and to which have attended the mayors of the eight Spanish leading 'sun and beach' municipalities that the AMT integrate, which represent more than 10 percent of the movement of national and international tourists and add up to about 50 million overnight stays per year. 

The meeting was attended by the Mayors Pere Granados, from Salou (Tarragona-Costa Dorada); Antonio Pérez Pérez, from Benidorm (Alicante-Costa Blanca); Marco Aurelio Pérez, from San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canarias); Jaume Dulsat i Rodríguez, from Lloret de Mar (Gerona-Costa Brava); José Ortiz, from Torremolinos (Costa del Sol); Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, from Calvià; José Miguel Rodríguez, for Adeje, and José Julián Mena, for Arona -these two last ones from Tenerife-.

At the work meeting, the eight mayors have set forth the AMT's operating machine. Among the subjects under study, the representatives have analysed the legal form that this pool of tourist destinations will adopt to reinforce their capacity for dialogue before the different instances of public administration.

Among the steps that are already taking place, in this case within the process of international visualisation of the entity, the AMT has activated its presence in social networks. On Twitter it will do so under the identity of @AMTSolyPlaya, on Facebook as AMT Sol y Playa, and on Instagram it will do it with the nickname AMTSolyPlaya.


The mayors have also given themselves a challenge, and within the process of preparing the DAFO study, that each of the destinations has to indicate the four of the eight Weaknesses, Threats, Strengths and Opportunities considered a priority to work on in order to address them through a common strategic plan; and they have already indicated in their agenda the next edition of FITUR 2018, in Madrid, as the date of a new meeting and launching of different tourist initiatives.