Attractions Tenerife

According to the report issued by the National Statistics Institute released today by the Industry, Tourism and Commerce Ministry, the hotel prices in Canarias dropped 5.7% in April.

The prices of the hotels had fallen 3.8% in Madrid and 1.8% in Catalonia, in comparison with the same month of the previous year, being the national average rate 3.1% lower than the previous year. The only region that presented a rising in terms of hotel prices was La Rioja, where prices raised 1.3% while the biggest falls occurred in Extremadura (-5.9% ), Canarias (-5.7%), Murcia (-4.9%) and the Balearic Islands (-4.3%).

Comparing months, national prices raised an average of 3.5%, +2.3% in Madrid and +3.5% in Catalonia. The major raise occurred in Asturias where prices raised +8.4% compared to March, followed by Cantabria and Melilla which had a raising of +7.7% each. On the other hand, only two regions had a negative price evolution. They are Aragon (-4.6%) and the Balearic Islands (-0.6%).

Hotel prices fell in April in all categories, being the ones which had most significant fall five and four gold stars hotels prices (-4.1%), three silver stars hotel prices (-3.8%) and two silver stars hotel prices (-3.5%).

The public entity ‘Turismo de Tenerife’ has obtained the approval for the execution of three important projects in the framework of the ‘Convenio de Regeneración del Espacio Turístico’ (Tourist Spaces Regeneration Agreement), which will be financed by the tourist council part of the Canarias government and the Canarias Employment Service, for a total of 1.8 million euros.

These projects include the construction of the northern coastal path, the impact plan for the green areas of the tourist areas, and the cleaning of the Adeje’s coastline between ‘Playa Paraiso’ and ‘La Caleta’. Two hundred workers will be hired for this project through the Canarias Employment Service.

The insular councillor of tourism and president of ‘Turismo de Tenerife’, José Manuel Bermúdez, stated that “these projects, which are very important for Tenerife, have been created and developed in the framework of the Tourist Spaces Regeneration Agreement and their execution is scheduled to begin before the end of this year”.

The agreement mentioned above counts with the participation of ‘Turismo de Tenerife’, the municipalities of Arona, Adeje, Santiago del Teide and Puerto de la Cruz, apart from the Ashotel association.

This northern coastal path will be executed in several stages, the first of which will be the stretch at Puerto de la Cruz, from ‘El Bollullo (La Orotava)’ beach to ‘Los Roques (Los Realejos)’ beach. In the future, this coastal path will have 20 kilometres length and it will cross Santa Ursula, and besides Puerto de la Cruz and Los Realejos, La Orotava and San Juan de la Rambla.

The second project is an impact plan over the green areas of the tourist municipalities of Tenerife (Arona, Adeje, Puerto de la Cruz and Santiago del Teide) to improve the image of the public areas of these destinations. The plan includes the cleaning of the most visited areas, the improving of the council services in these areas, the maintenance of the irrigation systems, pruning and fertilizing, and specific replanting actions.
The cleaning of the wastes that for different reasons usually end in the southwest coastline of Tenerife, between La Caleta and Playa Paraiso, constitute the third project to be carried out. This is an area that deserves a special treatment because it is the route that the boats which make travels to the whales watching areas take, and the image of the coastline needs to be improved to provide a good impression among the tourists who participate in these tours (more than 70,000 per year), apart from the potential damage to the marine life of the area that these wastes represent.

The execution of these projects will be in charge of Gespla, a public entity part of the Canarias government.

The councilmen form the ‘Sociedad de Desarrollo de Santa Cruz de Tenerife’ (Association for the development of Santa Cruz de Tenerife), Ángel Isidro Guimerá, announced in a press conference the future implementation of a tourist bus that will allow visitors to visit the heritage areas and streets of the Tenerife’s capital.

Mr. Guimerá said that the entity will publish in the following weeks the terms and conditions for the tourist bus service they will put out to tender. The terms and conditions have the required administrative and technical clauses as well as the route these tourist buses will make, and the regulations about the canon the concessionary will have to pay to the public administration.

The councilman said that this tourist bus service “is intended to get the visitors closer to the city, and allow them to know the heritage and the history of the capital’s streets as well as its characteristic buildings and monuments”.

Therefore, the goal of this service will be “to promote the city in an easy and comfortable way, which will be in benefit of this city that is trying to improve the service it provides to the tourists, who could also have special discounts and offers in the different stops of the tour”. With regards to the characteristics of this service, double-decker open top buses will be used, similar to those which are already providing this service in other cities. These buses will make a tour all about the city.

The frequency will be twenty minutes between buses and the tickets’ system will allow the passengers to get on or off the buses as many times as they want in the same day. Besides, the buses will count with an audio information system in different languages.

The Santa Cruz de la Palma port has received between last Saturday and today about 10,000 tourists, which is more than the half population of the capital, from four luxury cruises. This event makes evident that the island is still an attractive destination for this vessels, and that it is necessary to develop plans to dynamize the small and medium business of the island to help them reach a higher profitability from the visitors.

From the cruises that docked last Saturday, it has to be pointed out the arrival of the “Adventurer of the Seas” which departed from the San Juan de Puerto Rico port. This is thanks to the designation of the island’s port as ‘Schengen space’ or European Union frontier. The vessel arrived with 3,100 American, Canadian, and German passengers onboard, and after spending 9 hours docked at the capital’s port it departed to Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The importance of being the first stopover of this cruises in the European Union lies in the fact that the passengers as well as the crew of the vessel, after a long crossing, need to buy all kind of supplies at the city’s stores, providing a higher profitability to the local business than usual.

On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that the first among the four cruises that arrived to the port was the “Balmoral” on Saturday’s morning from the port of Funchal, bringing onboard 1,322 passengers, being 1,276 of them British. The vessel departed in the afternoon to the capital of Tenerife.

Finally, the Santa Cruz de la Palma port will change its image receiving two more cruises: the “Oriana” with 1,800 passengers onboard, and the “Queen Victoria” with 3,300 tourists onboard. The passengers of these cruises are British as well as the crew. They are coming from Las Palmas port and will continue their route to the Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Funchal ports respectively.

“Turismo de Tenerife” a private institution dedicated to the promotion of tourism in the island organized together with Edei, a consultancy firm, a one-day-conference entitled ‘Update Turismo Tenerife 2010’, which will take place at the Cajasiete de Santa Cruz’s conference center this Friday from 10.00 a.m.

The speakers, Alfons Cornella and Antonella Broglia, will take two hours to update the participants on the last trends of the business using a very creative methodology, informed “Turismo de Tenerife” in a press release.
Through a presentation based on a very dynamic format, Cornella and Broglia will present a set of ideas and experiences of companies all over the world to re-consider the client and the value, the new challenges of tourism and sales, and the intensity of information. These are some of the 10 key ideas the presentation will be centred on, and as it is stated in the conference announce “every businessman needs to know”.

Only in the year 2009 more than 10,000 managers, businessmen, and researchers attended some of these conferences, highlighting their inspiring character, the energy they transmit, and the tips and examples they provide about the new business initiatives.

Alfons Cornella is the founder and president of Infonomia, which is an entrepreneurs’ net point of reference for the Spanish speaking community. This net counts with more than 24,000 registered users and one million visits per month. Being advisor of important companies in Spain, Cornella has published 17 books on science, technology and innovation, among them “Futuro Presente: 101 ideas fuerza para entender las próximas décadas” and “La alquimia de la innovación”.

The other speaker, Antonella Broglia, has occupied senior management positions in important advertising companies such as DMB&B (afterwards D’Arcy) or Saatchi&Saatchi Spain, and nowadays she provides advisory services to several Spanish companies for the study of the impact of new technologies in everyday life, business, and brands. She is also a member of Infonomia.

“Turismo de Tenerife” a private institution dedicated to the promotion of tourism in the island organized together with Edei, a consultancy firm, a one-day-conference entitled ‘Update Turismo Tenerife 2010’, which will take place at the Cajasiete de Santa Cruz’s conference center this Friday from 10.00 a.m.

The speakers, Alfons Cornella and Antonella Broglia, will take two hours to update the participants on the last trends of the business using a very creative methodology, informed “Turismo de Tenerife” in a press release.
Through a presentation based on a very dynamic format, Cornella and Broglia will present a set of ideas and experiences of companies all over the world to re-consider the client and the value, the new challenges of tourism and sales, and the intensity of information. These are some of the 10 key ideas the presentation will be centred on, and as it is stated in the conference announce “every businessman needs to know”.

Only in the year 2009 more than 10,000 managers, businessmen, and researchers attended some of these conferences, highlighting their inspiring character, the energy they transmit, and the tips and examples they provide about the new business initiatives.

Alfons Cornella is the founder and president of Infonomia, which is an entrepreneurs’ net point of reference for the Spanish speaking community. This net counts with more than 24,000 registered users and one million visits per month. Being advisor of important companies in Spain, Cornella has published 17 books on science, technology and innovation, among them “Futuro Presente: 101 ideas fuerza para entender las próximas décadas” and “La alquimia de la innovación”.

The other speaker, Antonella Broglia, has occupied senior management positions in important advertising companies such as DMB&B (afterwards D’Arcy) or Saatchi&Saatchi Spain, and nowadays she provides advisory services to several Spanish companies for the study of the impact of new technologies in everyday life, business, and brands. She is also a member of Infonomia.

The majority of the hydric resources or water that Tenerife’s inhabitants consume comes from groundwater sources. In relative terms, the 85 percent of the total volume of water comes for underground pockets. In spite of the fact that their potential is lower than some decades ago, these water pockets will continue to be an important part of the fresh water supply of the island.

This information was issued yesterday by the “Consejo Insular de Aguas de Tenerife” (Tenerife Insular Council of Waters) manager José Fernández Betherncourt, who admitted that these resources are ‘falling down’. However, he said that the lost of this resource doesn’t have a direct connection with human consumption. “In fact, even if these water pockets were closed and the water extraction stopped, their level would continue to decrease”, he added.

For that reason, Bethencourt together with Pedro Suárez, counsellor of the Tenerife Insular Council of Waters, and the president of this institution Ricardo Melchior, presented the Hydrologic Plan draft of the island to the press and the public in general, which is a project intended to set the fundamentals for the future use of the hydric resources. “During the next six months, there will be workshops and meetings to inform the citizens of Tenerife about the plan, and to reach a general consent and to analyze specific issues”, said Suárez. “Once we finish this stage, we will draw up the definitive document and Tenerife will count with an updated plan to attend the needs of the community”.

Regarding the exploitation of the water pockets, the Water Council manager presented alternative measures such as water treatment and desalination. Besides, he outlined that these water pockets will continue to be the main source of water supply of the island, although nowadays they do not have the same level they had in the seventies when they “reached their maximum capability”. The abundance of this hydric resource allowed the settlement of many of the factories the island has nowadays. However, an improvement in the extraction “wouldn’t guarantee” the levels of that time.
Five more desalinization plants

To sum up, the water pockets will continue to be the main source of water supply in the island, but there will be alternative sources in the future. In that respect, Bethencout stated that it is planned to supply Tenerife in the short and medium term with five new desalinization plants, which will be located at Los Realjeros, Granadilla de Abona, Guía de Isora, Güimar, and La Laguna. The first three of them are already under construction.
In relation with the consumption model, the counsellor explained that they have chosen a “transition” model, which among other things will allow keeping the water supply from the water pockets. “This plan has ambitious objectives, but they are not impossible to achieve” he said, before adding that Tenerife is “much closer” than other regions to fulfil the European mandates.