Today the Council of Ministers authorized the distribution among the Autonomous Communities of 614.67 million euros from the Next Generation EU recovery funds, which will be used to support the transformation of Spanish tourist destinations into true poles of innovation, more competitive and more resistant to future crises.

“In an increasingly demanding international context, the wealth and diversity of destinations is the true competitive advantage of Spain. And competitiveness
it is no longer measured solely and exclusively in terms of profitability. Tourism is required today to be sustainable with the environment, and also socially and territorially, which means distributing tourist activity in a more balanced way throughout our territory ”, explained the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto.

“With this historic investment, we are going to support Spanish tourist destinations like never before, whatever their scale and the type of demand to which they respond, in their transformation process into true poles of tourism innovation capable of integrating into their offer the environmental, socioeconomic and territorial sustainability, and to develop resilience strategies in the face of the new challenges of climate change, tourist over-demand or health and security crises. We want tourism to unite our territory and be a fundamental lever in economic and social recovery ”, he added.

These 615 million euros are part of the extraordinary program of Sustainable Tourism Plans in Destinations, in which a total of 1,858 million euros will be invested in the next three years. It is the most important investment included in the Plan for the modernization and competitiveness of the tourism sector or component 14 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Government and which is endowed with 3.4 billion euros for direct and specific investments aimed at this sector strategy of the Spanish economy.

The Sustainability Plans program will benefit the destinations and the companies that operate in them. It will allow destinations to effectively incorporate sustainability and digitization in the management of tourism resources, infrastructures and products; It will contribute to the arrival of tourists throughout the year by diversifying the offer of destinations, which will generate opportunities for employment and activity throughout the territory.

Objective criteria

The distribution of this first extraordinary call for Sustainability Plans has been made based on objective criteria included in the Strategy for Sustainable Tourism in Destinations, approved unanimously at a Sector Conference last July.

These criteria take into account economic variables (percentage of tourism GDP with respect to regional GDP and fall in the affiliation of workers in the tourism sector between December 2019 and December 2020); territorial (percentage of surface of the Autonomous Community with respect to the national surface and population density) and tourism (number of international tourists received in 2019 and expenditure of these tourists, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics).

With these criteria, whose calculation formula appears in the Destination Tourism Sustainability Strategy, the distribution between Autonomous Communities is as follows:

The 15 World Heritage Cities in Spain will receive 45 million euros from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism to finance sustainable projects for the rehabilitation and maintenance of historical and cultural heritage for tourist use, as announced today by the minister Reyes Maroto, at the presentation ceremony of the Impulsa Patrimonio program in Baeza (Jaén).

"The Spanish historical and cultural heritage is a product with a strong attraction of both national and international tourists and has an increasing weight in the decision to travel to Spain, as evidenced by the growth of 16% that between 2016 and 2019 registered tourism culture as the main reason for travel among the international visitors we receive in that period. Therefore, within our plan for modernization and competitiveness of the tourism sector that we finance with Next Generation-EU funds, we launched this Boost Heritage program, to finance sustainable projects for the rehabilitation and maintenance of historical and cultural heritage and to enhance the tourist attraction capacity of our Heritage Cities throughout our territory. Boost Heritage will allow us to reinforce our commitment to quality, sustainable, digital and inclusive tourism and enhance our position of tourism leadership worldwide ”, explained the minister in the act of presentation of the plan.

The mayor of Baeza, Lola marin, who acted as host at the event, highlighted that the town of Jaén lays the foundations of this ambitious project for the 15 cities of the Group. Marín thanked the Government of Spain for “choosing Baeza for this announcement, which represents a milestone in the launch of important recovery and economy generation projects in cities like Baeza that represent the best of our culture and heritage. country, "he underlines. The mayor has stressed that" we are meeting in my city the most responsible for the promotion of Tourism in this country, which shows the relevance of this Plan Boosts Heritage, "he asserts.

The President of the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain and Mayor of Mérida, Antonio Rodriguez Osuna, thanked the Minister for her "commitment to promoting the Spain Brand" and publicly expressed the commitment of the 15 cities she represents to allocate funds to "projects that will revitalize fundamental spaces in the lives of neighbors, and also for tourists, boosting the economy and generating employment. ”“ Our heritage cities are jewels of this country and their development has a different complexity from the rest, ”he pointed out.

The presidents of Paradores also participated in the event, Pedro Saura, and Segittur, Enrique Martinez, and the CEO of Turespaña, Miguel Sanz, to explain the collaboration of the organizations and companies they represent with Heritage Cities.

Investment of 3 million per city

The Boost Heritage Program will be approved soon by the Council of Ministers and establishes the distribution of these 45 million euros among the 15 Heritage Cities (Alcalá de Henares, Ávila, Baeza, Cáceres, Córdoba, Cuenca, Ibiza, La Laguna, Mérida, Salamanca , Santiago, Segovia, Tarragona, Toledo and Úbeda), which will receive a maximum of three million each.

The actions that will be financed with this program include the rehabilitation of buildings considered Assets of Cultural Interest; renovation of pavements and adaptation for people with reduced mobility; replacement of lighting systems to save energy; adaptation of heritage for tourist use, among others.

Collaboration actions Ministry and Heritage Cities

As a result of collaboration between the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, in recent months projects such as the Post-COVID Strategy Study in World Heritage Cities have been developed with the aim of reorienting the Group's Operational Plan towards the reactivation of the cultural and heritage tourism in the 15 cities.

In addition, the Group has also had the collaboration of the Secretary of State for Tourism to launch the audiovisual project An Extraordinary Journey which, accompanied by 15 individual films from each city, generates promotional material for campaigns in national markets and international.

In the case of Turespaña, in the last year around twenty joint promotion actions have been carried out with the Heritage Cities through the Spanish Tourism Councils abroad. Recently, the Heritage Cities brand has been presented to tour operators, travel agents and the media at two events at the University of California and Las Vegas, in addition to the promotion made at the Grammy Awards ceremony and at the Arcángel concert. in Los Angeles. The positioning of Heritage Cities as a MICE destination will take place this April with the celebration in Baeza of the International Congress of Aerospace Technologies.

For its part, Paradores has collaborated for more than 15 years with the World Heritage Cities Group with joint promotional actions to promote cultural tourism at the national level and in the international market. Both entities represent the best of the Spain Brand and are committed to sustainable, quality tourism, interested in history, art and gastronomy.

An alliance that allows the recovery of tourism by promoting the rich heritage, culture and natural capital where the Paradores are located. Eleven cities of the Group (Alcalá de Henares, Ávila, Cáceres, Córdoba, Cuenca, Mérida, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Segovia, Toledo and Úbeda) have a Parador de Turismo and the Parador de Ibiza is under construction, in the Dalt Vila castle.

The 15 Heritage Cities, and the Group of Cities as such, are also part of the Smart Tourist Destinations Network, a model promoted by the Secretary of State for Tourism, through Segittur, which helps them advance in challenges such as digitization. , sustainability and the promotion of tourist destinations, with criteria of innovation and accessibility. Salamanca, Cuenca, Cáceres and Mérida are the ones that have advanced the most in this model.

The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, has participated in a virtual way in the meeting of Tourism ministers called by the Slovenian presidency, where the "Roadmap for the Transition of the Tourism Ecosystem in 2030" has been addressed.

In her speech, the minister described the use of the EU's Digital COVID Certificate as a success. “Right now, 49 countries and territories are already connected and many others are developing interoperable solutions. The Certificate is an instrument that generates confidence in safe travel, facilitates international mobility and reinforces the tourism leadership of the European Union in the world ”, the minister recalled. He has also called for progress in vaccination, which has proven very effective in containing the pandemic and allows the reopening of borders to international tourists.

Maroto has recognized that “during this time of the pandemic tourism has received a high level of attention on the European agenda and from the Member States due to the negative impact that the pandemic has had on this sector. This momentum needs to be maintained, and the Tourism Transition Roadmap that we are preparing is a very important milestone in this direction. We must ensure that tourism retains a relevance in the future commensurate with its economic and social weight and we must strengthen the European tourism agenda so that it has the ability to influence major European policies such as the European Green Deal "

Maroto pointed out in his speech that the two priorities on the tourism agenda are, firstly, to consolidate the recovery of tourism at the European and global level and, secondly, the modernization of tourism based on sustainable and digital transformation. Reyes Maroto has reviewed different measures that are necessary to achieve these objectives, such as environmental protection, preparing the sector for future crises or establishing smart, data-based strategies at the local level.

He has also reviewed other actions that should be taken into consideration by European countries, such as adapting SMEs to a more digital ecosystem, and strengthening the protection of our cultural and patrimonial heritage. Finally, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism has invited those attending the next UNWTO General Assembly to be held on December 1 and 2 in Madrid. It will be the first global meeting of the United Nations since the pandemic began and will focus on three key themes: Education and Youth, Rural Development and Digital Innovation.

Spain received 4.7 million international tourists in September, representing 53% of the volume of international tourists prior to the pandemic and 311% more than in the same month of 2020. So far this year the number of tourists visiting Spain is close to 19.7 million. Tourist spending reached 5,401 million euros, compared to 964 million in September last year, six times more, according to the Statistics on Tourist Movements on the Border (Frontur) and the Tourist Expenditure Survey (Egatur) prepared by the National Institute of Statistics.

The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, highlighted that these data “confirm that the reactivation of international tourism is underway and month by month a positive trend is consolidated that places Spain as one of the preferred destinations for tourists international for its tourist attractions, but also for its high levels of security as 89% of the target population is vaccinated. Our prospects for the last quarter of the year are optimistic: the arrival of international tourists will be between 10.7 and 10.9 million, which means recovering 66% of the tourists who arrived in the same period of 2022 " .

For the minister, the arrival data and spending, added to the employment recovery data and the decrease in the number of workers in ERTE, which marks a new low of 190,000 people at the end of October, make “we are very optimistic and they place Spain at the forefront of the recovery of international tourism ”.

In September the average expenditure per tourist stood at 1,074 euros, 26.9% more than a year ago and the average duration of the trips is 7.8 days. The expenditure of international tourists in September also represents 52% of that registered in 2019 (€ 9,617 million). In the accumulated of the first nine months of the year, total spending reached 21,939 million euros, 23.6% compared to the same period in 2020.

By Autonomous Communities and countries

The Balearic Islands were the main destination chosen by international tourists both in terms of number of arrivals (24% of the total), 216% more year-on-year, and for its weight in tourist spending (26.8% of the total).

They are followed by Catalonia, which accumulates 18.5% of arrivals (7.2% more year-on-year) and represents 16.8% of spending, and Andalusia with 687,383 visitors.

Regarding the nationalities of origin of tourists, Germans led the number of arrivals in September, with more than 800,000 tourists; followed by British (785,478) and French (687,480).

So far this year, France is the main source market, with more than 4 million tourists and an increase of 23% compared to the same period in 2020. Germany with 3.4 million and an increase of 57%, occupies the second position .

Regarding the level of spending, the main source markets so far this year are Germany with 3,849 million (17.5%), followed by France with 3,216 million (14.7%) and the United Kingdom with 2,647 million euros ( 12.1%).

Spain will host on November 30 the XXIV meeting of the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) at the request of the organization, once Morocco has given up holding it in Marrakech (Morocco) given its health situation and limitations in the mobility conditions derived from it established by the Moroccan authorities, as transferred by the Organization to the member countries.

For the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, "Spain will be the host country after the resignation of the Moroccan authorities and the express request of the UNWTO", in compliance with the statutes of the Organization and with the agreement of Morocco.

The Minister of Tourism highlighted that the holding of an international forum of this level also represents the global recognition of "Spain as a safe destination", while being "an inescapable opportunity for the international projection of Spain and to reaffirm our position as a leading actor in tourism terms. Madrid will be at the center of the debate on the recovery of world tourism and the design of the tourism of the future ”. The minister added that the representatives who attend the meeting "will have the opportunity to see first-hand the progress in the project for the new world headquarters of the Organization in Madrid."

For Reyes Maroto, the experience of Spain in the organization of congresses and events is internationally recognized, "it was evident when in record time we assumed the organization of the COP-25", he highlighted.

XXIV General Assembly

The General Assembly is the main body of the World Tourism Organization and this year it will focus its debates on innovation, education and rural development to rebuild and improve tourism after the pandemic.

It meets every two years to approve its budget and its work program and to debate issues of importance to the sector. The Assembly is made up of the effective and associate members. Affiliate members and representatives of other international organizations also participate as observers.

On this occasion, the 43rd meeting of the Plenary of the Affiliate Members of the UNWTO will be the first official activity of the General Assembly. The Plenary meeting is the most important governance structure of the Affiliate Members and provides an ideal context to share initiatives and discuss the annual work program.