The president of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) emphasizes the importance of Majorca’s candidature as a Sustainable Tourism Observatory

The president of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) emphasizes the importance of Majorca’s candidature as a Sustainable Tourism Observatory

“Majorca deserves this recognition, which is aimed at enriching and improving our tourism model and encouraging other destinations to do the same”.

Palma

19/11/2020

The Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) supports Majorca’s candidature as Sustainable Tourism Observatory, with a view to it becoming an important tool in positioning the island as a more sustainable, safe, modern, and quality destination. This was evident in today’s online event whose participants included the president of APB, Francesc Antich, the Tourism and Sports minister at the Council of Majorca, Andreu Serra, the CEO of AnySolution, Dolores Ordóñez, and the head of Quality, Environment, Innovation and CSR department at APB, Jorge Martín.

The APB considers this step to be an important tool for focusing on a change of model, without neglecting tourism but rather turning it into a benchmark in terms of sustainability, since this Observatory would be the second in Spain, eighth in the European Union and 31st in the world.

In this respect, the president of the APB, Francesc Antich, stressed the importance of promoting the candidature: "There is no doubt that Majorca’s experience and its high tourism carrying capacity, its great dependence on tourism and insular character, the uniqueness, richness and fragility of its landscape and its marine and land-based natural resources, make it a unique place, worthy of the benefits of the Observatory, its complicities and synergies, its rigorous and persistent perspective aimed at enriching and improving its tourism model and encouraging other destinations to do the same".

The minister, Andreu Serra, valued the importance of having an Observatory that "will provide us with data for the future promotion of tourism, as well as an indication of our next move and our needs within the Sustainable Development Goals". In addition, Serra said that the Observatory will also "be a fundamental tool in consolidating the island as a safe destination in the entire tourism value chain."

There are several requirements for Majorca to become part of the Sustainable Tourism Observatories network, which are mainly leadership, the value chain or cooperative work, as well as environmental values, such as acoustic pressure, CO2 levels, etc., enabling us to determine the reality of this region in comparison with others, through the different Observatories, contributing to the internationalisation of the destination.

The candidature is managed by the Majorca Tourism Foundation, which is promoting other activities to ensure the island’s position.

What is a Sustainable Tourism Observatory?

It is a network promoted by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) to support the continuous improvement of sustainability and collaborate in the tourism sector’s ability to recover through the systematic and periodic monitoring of the results and the impact of tourism. Along these lines, observatories provide a better understanding of the use of resources at the destination and promote responsible tourism management.