The mayoress of Santa Eulària, Carmen Ferrer, defended this Thursday during the inauguration of the XII Ibiza Tourism Forum that the key to the future of the sector is a mature, responsible and forward-looking management, and not to reject tourism as the economic base of the territory.
“The solution is not to deny tourism, but to manage with responsibility and governance, and to rethink, correct and evolve our tourism model. And that, undoubtedly, is something positive,” said Ferrer, who emphasized the need to make economic development compatible with sustainability and the quality of life of residents.
The XII Ibiza Tourism Forum, held on November 14 in the municipality of Santa Eulària under the slogan “Positive Tourism: real solutions for tourism with impact, coexistence and shared value”, brings together experts, entrepreneurs, authorities, employers and students to analyze the present and anticipate the future of tourism on the island.
The initiative, promoted by the Santa Eulària Empresarial association together with the City Council, has been consolidated since 2013 as a space for reflection and debate on marketing models, innovation, sustainability and tourism strategy, in a community where tourism accounts for one sixth of the national GDP and employs nearly three million people.
“We cannot fall into the error of blaming tourism.”
During her speech, Carmen Ferrer warned against the growing confrontational discourse towards tourism, recalling that “the problem is not the visitor, but our ability to manage a sustainable and balanced model that guarantees well-being for all”.
“The economic source of our island is tourism. It is clearly our base, our engine and the source of our opportunities,” said the mayor, who acknowledged that for decades the success of tourism was measured by the number of visitors, but that today this increase “is no longer celebrated in the same way, because it is associated with saturation and loss of quality of life”.
Along these lines, the mayor pointed out that “when a destination matures, so do the challenges”, and detailed some of the most pressing problems facing the island: pressure on the territory, difficulty of access to housing, saturation in high season, scarcity of natural resources -such as water- and mobility problems.
Ferrer provided an illustrative figure: in the last 25 years, population pressure in Ibiza has grown by 80%, in an island territory limited to 572 square kilometers, which requires particularly careful planning.
“The great challenge of Ibiza is to grow in quality, not only in quantity. To grow in stable jobs, in responsible spending, in a redistribution of flows and in a positive impact on the territory,” he insisted.
Actions from Santa Eulària: housing, schools and return of talent
Carmen Ferrer highlighted some of the policies promoted by the Santa Eulària City Council to correct the imbalances of the destination with responsibility and vision for the future. Among them she mentioned:
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Water protection,
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Expansion of public schools to support families,
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The construction of affordable housing and rental subsidies,
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And the promotion of the return of young talent and local entrepreneurship.
For this reason, he insisted on the need to continue building a competitive, responsible and value-generating tourism. To this end, he called for continuing to fight intrusion in all sectors, control the carrying capacity of the island to avoid saturation, and invest in efficiency and resource recovery.
“Citizens are asking for balance, sustainability, affordable housing, quality of life and preservation of the identity they feel is threatened. And they are right,” Ferrer said.
He also called for the protection of Ibiza’s reputation: “We cannot allow noise to extinguish its essence, nor can we allow confrontation to erase decades of effort, excellence and shared pride”.
Carmen Ferrer closed her speech by aligning herself with the motto of the forum by stressing that “we are talking about tourism, but in a positive way, because it is the one that will undoubtedly generate the economic capacity to face all the challenges we are talking about”.
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