Yesterday I was driving in my car and caught a most interesting radio update on tourism matters: The whole podcast can be heard here, starting from 19' 30''.
The first matter it was dealt with was -of course- yesterday's big tourism news in Barcelona: the start of an entrance payment fee to the Park Güell. More about it here as well. Of course, in the morning news reports were on the implementation difficulties of this first day -ticket vending machines had been sabotaged in different parts of the city- but then in the evening reports the common thing was that most of the tourists were happy about this fee: they understood -so most of them- that a cultural property needs to be kept and maintained and so they found it OK contributing to that.
Ehm... can we extrapolate a bit this to tourism tax? Or will I get killed for that comparison?
Anyhow, it was a pleasure seing yesterday on the evening news how people were able to approach the big salamander of the Park and take pictures for as long as they would. Compare this to the overcrowded place the Park had become in recent years and you will agree that regulating the visitor's flow (that's what ultimately the whole thing is about) to the Park is a positive thing. And also the neighbours will soon understand, too...
The second subject of this most informative radio programme was an interview to several tourism institutional leaders from the Girona region as to know their opinion about where should we go from here. 'Here' means of course this year's tourist season, the most successful in terms of visitors and turnover. Opinions of all kinds were heard: We have to continue Girona's destination promotion towards an "all-year-round" destination; more cohesion and unity in the whole tourism industry is needed; we need to explain that our destination has full of services for the visitors, etc, etc. I loved listening to Mrs. Nativitat Bové, from the Cerdanya area, fighting for her corner: the Cerdanya area, a beautiful mountain destination which includes a huge skiing resort, must become part of the Girona brand as well, so Mrs. Bove....so, Girona is not only the beautiful coastal line known worldwide unter the brand "Costa Brava" but it also has beautiful mountains, partly to be discovered.
But out of all ideas that came up, my favourite one remains the one expressed by Enric Dotras: he clearly advocates for going back to our roots by finding what he calls in Catalan "Voluntat de servei", which translates more or less as "Servicing, welcoming and being hospitable". Mr Dotras claims we must find back to these values which seem to have gone away... I competely agree with him. In fact, tourism is also called in English "the Hospitality Industry, isn't it?.
The final part of the programme was on sustainable tourism. There I was most pleased to hear my ancient teacher Jordi Ficapal from Turisme Sant Ignasi, who is the current manager of the Observatori del Turisme. Mr Ficapal set forth a very interesting idea: creating tourism places is not about creating places where foreigners feel well but mainly creatign places where locals feel well. When the latter happens, you can be sure that foreigners feel OK therein as well. So, by creating spaces which are welcoming to locals, you lay the best foundations for the foreigners' attraction to a space as well. This is a most interesting and, at the same time, provoking thought. But if you think twice about it, this must be one of the keys to Barcelona's success in tourism: happy inhabitants welcoming happy tourists. But more on tourist spaces another day.
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