Mijas now has the Municipal Tourism Quality Plan 2020-2023. The document, necessary to request the cataloging of the municipality as a Tourist Municipality of Andalusia, was approved on Wednesday the 29th in the ordinary plenary session for July, the fi rst in which the 25 councillors of the municipal corporation have returned to once again sit together since the end of the state of alarm, although complying with security measures, such as the use of masks. “With this plan we take a further step to position our city as a leading tourist destination on the Costa del Sol, expanding, at the same time, the resources we have to promote Mijas at all levels”, said the mayor of the municipality, Josele González (PSOE) in a press release, adding that the cataloging as a Tourist Municipality of Andalusia is “a recognition that will be added to the work done in recent years with the Strategic Tourism Plan” in which “the fundamental lines to be followed are defi ned in the short, medium and long term to optimize the potential of “Mijas as a destination” and to continue advancing to promote sustainable and family tourism in which the wide range of segments we offer distinguishes us from the rest of the options within the province”, he affi rmed with regard to the Strategic Tourism Plan. For his part, the councillor for Tourism, José Carlos Martín (C’s), explained that with the approval of the quality plan, the application to obtain the cataloging will be presented “if not next week, the following”. According to Martín, the plan includes “60 improvement measures” that the Local Council must carry out, in addition to monitoring and controlling them. Likewise, its objective is to provide the municipality with a complementary tool, cogerte with the Strategic Plan, to maintain quality levels and the image of safety in Mijas, as it has been drawn up during the state of alarm and “introduces all the variables related to the new situation” derived from COVID-19 regarding the protection of residents and tourists. “It is essential to offer security, not only to our residents but also to visitors. From the Local Government, we have put all our efforts into implementing all the necessary measures to guarantee the health of the citizens and that also makes us one of the safest destinations in Andalusia”, added the councillor. “The cataloging as Tourist Municipality of Andalusia allows us to opt for greater promotion and tourism subsidies, which we are currently unable to access and that are now more important than ever for this sector, which has been so badly affected by the health crisis”, added the councillor for Tourism. 

Debate in plenary session 

From the government team, the spokesperson for the Municipal Group of the PSOE, Roy Pérez, considered “essential” in the debate prior to the approval of the plan that the administration takes the steps within its possibilities to benefi t the sector: “We are living in troubled times in which tourism, our main engine, is, without a doubt, one of the areas most affected by this pandemic. Therefore, any step, any activity that the Administration can carry out, in coordination with other administrations, is essential at this moment”. For their part, Podemos clarifi ed that this plan was made without including the opinion of the sectors involved and that of the citizens and made a series of proposals, “which could not be included in the plan”, said the group’s spokesperson, Remedios Leiva. “This plan has been carried out by a company outside the Town Hall and as far as I am aware, at no time have the agents involved in the plan been taken into account”, she added. The councillor for Tourism clarifi ed that a quality plan, as opposed to a strategic plan, should not include citizen participation, but should be carried out by an external company to assess precisely the quality of the tourist services offered by the municipality. For his part, the mayor invited Leiva to learn about the content of the strategic plan by visiting the Tourism department or downloa-ding it from the municipal website. “I fi nd it particularly worrying that they want to give lessons on how, in this case, to manage the tourist section in the municipality and they have no knowledge of the fact that there is a strategic plan already approved by this Local Council a few years ago”.

Finally, the unassigned councillor, Carlos Rivero, considered that the ideal situation would be for this plan, which was approved by all the parties except for Podemos, who abstained, should have been drawn up at the end of the summer. “I consider that it would have been more interesting to fi nalize this action plan after the summer season, in order to have included, if proceeding, incidents and proposals for mprovement regarding the impact that the coronavirus will have on the tourism sector”, he pointed out. From the bench of the Municipal Partido Popular there were no comments during the debate prior to the vote on this plan.

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Source: Mijas Semanal