The Council of Ministers approved today, at the proposal of the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, to invest 46 million euros from Next Generation EU funds in improving the tourist competitiveness of extra-peninsular territories (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla).
The Royal Decree for the direct granting of subsidies approved today by the Council of Ministers authorizes the Government to transfer 20 million euros to each of the island's autonomous communities, and another 3 million euros to each of the autonomous cities.
“Due to their peripheral nature, our archipelagos and autonomous cities have had a greater impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been especially negative in the tourism sector of the islands. The Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan contemplates deploying specific resilience strategies for these territories with the aim of improving their competitiveness and making their economies more resistant, plans that will continue in 2022 and 2023 ”, explained the Minister of Industry , Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto.
Performances on the islands
In the case of the Balearic and Canary Islands, the planned actions seek to adapt their economies, with a great weight of tourism, to shocks in demand, as in the case of pandemics, impacts on tour operators or others. Its resilience strategies will include, among other actions, the requalification of obsolete tourist infrastructures; investment in public infrastructures, with special emphasis on improving the attractiveness of public spaces, environmental management of beaches and their enhancement with facilities, the provision of approved trails and waste treatment; the reinforcement of public services in areas of special tourist influx: administrative, security and health services; specific youth training in the field of tourism; development of the alternative tourism product to the sun and beach, such as cultural or nature tourism; seasonally adjusted strategic promotion, with special emphasis on online marketing strategies, language accessibility, proactive capacity in multimedia tools, SEO, institutional CRM, etc.
In the case of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands, incentives are provided for the opening of the offer outside the high season to combat the high seasonality of its tourist activity. While for the Canary Islands, incentives are contemplated aimed at transport companies to facilitate connectivity with the peninsula.
Ceuta and melilla
Unlike the archipelagos, improving the competitiveness and adaptability of the economy of the autonomous cities involves mobilizing tourism as an engine of regional economic development. Thus, their resilience strategies will include investments in public spaces to promote their tourist use; lines of aid to tourist companies (especially accommodation and restaurant services) for the modernization and rejuvenation of the tourist plant; training in tourism competencies, especially among young people and national promotion (destinations in the south of the peninsula) and international (Europe and northern Morocco) of the two cities as tourist destinations of historical-cultural interest.
The execution period of the actions that may be financed with this investment of 46 million euros runs until December 31, 2024.
