Playa Americas

The club hotel Riu Buena Vista Tenerife has received an “Award of Excellence” by the British tourist operator Thomas Cook after an opinion poll done to thousands of customers taking into account every aspect, from quality and service to facilities and food.

The hotel’s manager, Diego Roa Molina, received in hands the award from Martin Milner, representative of Thomas Cook Gateway. According to Roa, it fills them with pride and satisfaction to receive this award because is a reward for the hard work the entire staff of the hotel make every day.

The results were obtained from a customer satisfaction survey that tourists filled in during their stay at different hotels in the summer of 2009.

Carlos Alonso Rodríguez, insular counselor of Economy and Competitiveness, and Urban Mobility coordinator, said that “the Council has made a draft of the route this railway could have to connect tourist towns such as Los Cristianos, Las Américas and Costa Adeje”. However, he said that it is necessary a serious study of the project to confirm its viability.
The idea is to provide Tenerife with a new and modern means of transport to improve commuters transport as well as tourists transport. Alonso said that the planned railway would connect the municipalities of Arona and Adeje, going through tourist town such as Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas and also other towns. This initiative would connect several towns from the Medical Complex El Mojón in Arona to the future train station in Adeje, connecting several tourist seaside resorts.
The councilor said that it is important to count with the commitment of these municipalities to make this project possible. Although it is technically viable, it is necessary to calculate its costs and define where the financing founds would come from.

The neighbors association from Los Cristianos said that they support this project which would play a major role in transport between Arona and Adeje. The train would provide an added value to these towns and also a connection for the citizens between the medical complex and these cities.

Within the framework of the 18th edition of the Adeje’s Summer University (UVA) the professor Alberto Darias Príncipe, who has a doctorate in History of Art and teaches at the La Laguna University, has said that cultural tourism is an alternative to be taken into consideration for the economic future of the Canary Islands, because it is an interesting activity for visitors and locals that provides them the chance “to appreciate the value of these islands, not only the natural ones like the beaches, sea and weather, but the cultural ones such as our traditions and way of living”.

Darias also said that “we are used to beach & sun tourism, but we have forgotten something very important that is our culture, arts, and traditions, which are interesting for the visitors who come to the island”.
He emphasizes the fact that the tourists who choose the Canary Islands as tourist destination “need to discover the culture of the archipelago, its cultural identity, and this is an aspect that needs to be reinforced and revalued to attract a more varied tourist market”. With this respect, the professor said that culture tourism in Tenerife should be focused in the history, traditions, and legends of the island.

Benefits
The advantages of cultural tourism as parallel offer to sun and beach tourism is that the first one focuses in the discovery of the region an the re-enactment of historical moments and events, which according to Darias “can be found everywhere, in a forest, in a beautiful landscape such as ‘Cañadas del Teide’, or in other places where tourists can be marveled by the beauty of the scenery and discover the legends of the area, which some times are true and other times are mere oral traditions but always interesting and fascinating”.

The professor of the La Laguna University said that this kind of tourism has a great potential in the Canary Islands due to their history, specially the “marvelous period during the XV century when two men kinds joined emerging a new culture part Spaniard and part pre-Hispanic”.
Darias also talked about the relevance of the Catholic Church in the architectural heritage of the island and he assured that the couple State-Church is fundamental because the Catholic Church as the 75 percent of the cultural and artistic heritage of the island”. He added that, “When visitors arrive to a town and want to see the emblematic buildings they are taken to a church, a chapel or a convent. These buildings enclose the architectural heritage and art expressions in the islands”.

Emerging Ideas
The professor explained that nowadays in the Canary Islands there is an increasing interest and support to cultural tourism, because tourist resorts and businesses related to tourism have realized that the archipelago has a great cultural potential, which needs to be exploited to offer tourists a varied tourist offer, and to boost the cultural identity of the islands.
He said that nowadays we can see the work done at the San Marcos church in Icod de los Vinos where visitors go to learn about our culture or the “Casa Fuerte de Adeje” in the municipality of Adeje, or the Santa Ursula church which has an important meaning for the local people and for the history of Tenerife”.

Another kind of cultural tourism is the “intangible” one. An example of that is the Adeje’s Passion of Christ performance which is part of our intangible cultural heritage.

Cultural tourism has to be compatible with the present tourist offer providing alternative activities, and this way, contribute to the revaluing of our history and to reach a wider market.

It was first presented in Liverpool, and then in London. This year, Edinburgh will be the venue for this fair between Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th of July. The fair will take place at The Mound, next to Princess Street, in front of The National Gallery of Scotland. The sponsors of this event are Jet2.com and Jet2holiday.com which will take the opportunity to offer their routes and travel packages to Spanish destinations.

Different autonomous communities will have an active participation in this event, presenting their tourist and cultural offer to the assistants to this fair. Some of the communities that will participate of this summer festival are: Andalucía, the Balearic Islands, Galicia, the Valencian community, and some of the Canary Islands including Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Tenerife. During this fair, visitors will be able to enjoy plays, music, dances, food and wine tastings.

Andalucía will present a local flamenco dance company called “Peña Camarón de la Isla” as well traditional products such as sherry, cheese and ham. The Balearic Islands will provide an innovative touch with the “Foc I Fum” group form Ibiza. Besides, the traditional music and music instruments of Mallorca will be presented by the “Xeremiers de Mallorca” band. On the other hand, Formentera will be showing the attractions of the island through an exhibition of jewelry and handicrafts.
Galicia will bring a traditional dance company called “BoNoVo” and a selection of traditional liquors such as “orujo”, “licor café” and herbs liquors apart from a craftsmen’ work exhibition from Piedras de Santiago. The Valencian community will delight the audience with their renowned “paella Valenciana” which is a traditional dish made with different types of seafood, meat and rice. The music of this community will be represented promoting the “Low Coast Festival” and the “Electro Beach Festival”. Besides, the Valencian band “Cirilo” leaded by Benidorm, will be presenting some songs of their last album “Feliz”.
Regarding the Canary Islands they will fan out their wide tourist offer including golf courses. Gran Canaria will offer visitors to take them a photograph having one of the most beautiful landscapes of the island as background. Tenerife will offer tastings of their famous “Piedras del Teide”.
The Tourist Office of Spain will provide food tastings presenting the best Spanish wines and the “Cerrato” cheese apart from an exiting performance of the pop-rock band Anima Pop. Of course, football will be present in this fair too, with the celebration of the victory the Spanish team had at the Fifa World Cup Sudafrica 2010.

A total of 451,165 visitors were attended at the tourist information offices in Tenerife in the first six months of 2010, which supposes 7.8% more than the previous year. The local Councilor of Tourism and president of Turismo de Tenerife (public entity in charge of tourist promotion in the island), José Manuel Bermúdez, highlighted in a press release the relevance of these information offices which have been part of the “Infoten” network for the last five years. From the total, five of them have received the “Q de Calidad” (quality service label).
Thirty four offices are part of the “Infoten” network being the one which received more visitors, the one located at Puerto de La Cruz, registering 108,803 visitors in the first six months of this year. It was followed by the ones located at La Laguna (40,374), Arona-Las Vistas (39,095), Castillo de Santa Cruz (39,016) and Adeje with 37,108 visitors.
Regarding the origin of the tourists that asked for information in these offices, the Spaniards are in first place with 160,698 information queries, followed by Germans (101,996), British (93,673) and French (27,542).
The visitors asked for maps and brochures mainly, but they also requested information about the bus services and routes to travel by car. Leisure activities as well as tours, cultural events and hiking paths were other important information requests.

All the offices can provide tourists the same quality information because they connected to a digital network that keeps them updated and connected between each other. These offices can be easily identified because they have the same “look” in terms of colors and logo, furniture, staff uniforms and signs. These offices provide complete tourist information services from maps and brochures to information about new products and tourist tendencies.

The new technologies fair will celebrate its fifth edition at the Council’s exhibitions site having more participants than last year. The fastest internet connection available in Canarias will be the delight of the audience.
From 20th to 25th of August, it will be celebrated the major technology event in Canarias, which is one of the most important in Spain. The amenities of the facility, the available space for each area, and a comfortable environment made this fair chosen last year as the best event of this kind in the country.

The goal of the non-profit organization Innova7 which has organized the Lan Party in Tenerife during these years is to create a space to interact, where the audience is able to play, share, and learn. Since this fair is celebrated in the exhibitions site of the Council of Tenerife it as a larger area which places it in the sixth place among the most important fairs in the country regarding number of assistants. Because in the current times the society is looking for new ways to endure the economic crisis, it has been created a wide area in the ground floor of the site especially designed for professionals of the new technologies in Canarias to allow their products and services be better exhibited and promoted.
One of the main innovations this year is that those who can stay 24 hours in the exhibitions site will be able to enter one day before the fair’s opening to be more comfortable and participate in some exclusive activities.
Three different areas

The games’ area is still the most important one in the Lan Party having 1,024 connected stands provided with the fastest DSL connection in the Canary Islands, 200 times faster than a domestic high speed connection. This games’ center will have a central area with several large screens which will show videos and the most exiting games tournaments live. There will be stands to see the official competitions as well that count with the latest computers and game consoles for the players to compete for a prize money of more than 15,000 Euros.

The “Salón de Manga” is one of the most appealing areas in the fair due to the originality in the disguises the visitors use and the “para-para” (group chorography) contests, karaoke, and cosplay. The manga, anime and videogames characters will be seen again in this area. A special area will be devoted to cards and miniature tournaments as well as handicraft and Asian calligraphy.

Closure Program
The IT professionals will close the fair giving 60 conferences and workshops starting with the introduction of the tri-continental communications’ node, the NAP WACI and also video games industry advising, the creation of a tourism multinational business from a single idea, the costs’ saving using free software and computing classes for advanced learners.
This year, instead of having one international celebrity, the organization has preferred to offer a range of 36 speakers who will talk about the latest innovations in digital leisure, business entrepreneurship, digital security and programming. Among them is Alex Huguet, a renowned designer who has worked for a great number of Hollywood mega productions such as Planet 51, Clash of Titans, and the last Harry Potter movies. He will be giving a conference and a workshop. Another speaker will be Salvador Larroca, a Valencian comic book artist that is actually working for Marvel and has been working in the United States for many years, being one of the most renowned ones. Chema Alonso will be present as well. He has been awarded by Microsoft five times for his work as security consultant, and he will be giving a conference about digital security. Josep Sánchez, founder of the leading video games website in Spain, will be talking about the problems in the relationship between the media and the videogames companies.

This film that has 84 minutes duration has already participated in the international documentary films festival that took place in Madrid this year and it also participated in the “VI Festival Hispanoamericano Internacioanl de Cine y Video de México”.
From Friday 16th to Sunday 18th of July, “Holiday” will be exhibited at the TEA (Tenerife arts auditorium). There will be two shows per day, one at 7 p.m. and other at 9:30 p.m. These shows will count with the presence of the film’s director, Víctor Moreno, together with the films critic Javier Fuentes Feo, who will be giving their comments after the film’s presentation.
“Holiday” had its international premiere at the “Festival Internacional de Cine de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria” where it obtained a special mention from the jury in new director’s category. It became this way, the first production from Canaries awarded in an international film festival.
The duration of this film is 84 minutes and it has already participated in the “Sección Panorama Nacional del Festival Internacional Documentamadrid 2010” (international film festival in Madrid) and also in the “VI Festival Hispanoamericano Internacional de Cine y Vídeo de México” (international film festival in Mexico).
The production of this film took four years and the location was Lanzarote Island. According to the words of the director “this documentary film compares the view of the tourists that record their holidays with the view of the locals who are the heirs of the island’s heritage, and therefore, essentials to build its future”.
He added that, “I tried to establish a dialogue between both realities to describe how contraries these worlds can be”. For this production, Víctor Moreno collected more than 100 hours of video from present tourists as well as 20 hours of super-8 material from the first tourists that arrived to the island. This is a visual memory that reveals the past and present value of the Canary Islands.
The commercial opening of this movie will be the 23rd of July at the “Multicines Monopol” in Gran Canaria. The film was co-produced by Nacedón Films, Luna Llena Producciones and Víctor Moreno.

The “Tamac” project was developed to provide quality seal in hospitality and to create an accessibility manual for this sector.

More than 70,000 people with disabilities have chosen Tenerife to spend their holidays, according to the information provided by the AENA (global operator of airport services and air navigation) from the Reina Sofía airport in Tenerife.

The information was presented by the authorities last Friday at the city hall where the Tamac project was introduced to promote the development of accessible tourist offers in the archipelago. This project counts with an investment of 553,000 euros which won’t be used in accessibility construction works, but to achieve quality seals in hotels as well as to create an accessibility manual for the hospitality industry, and also the development of software tools to provide information about routes and car lots accessible for people with disabilities.

The project presentation counted with the presence of the councilor of Tourism of the island, José Manuel Bermúdez, the councilor of Social Welfare, Cristina Valido, as well as the hospitality industry association. The objective of this project is to boost the development of strategies to promote “Accessible Tourism” in Tenerife and Madeira.
Two hotels will participate in this pilot project and according to Mrs. Valido the goal is to provide people the same comfort they have at home to encourage their visit to the islands. The goal is to turn Tenerife into “one of the accessibility tourism destinations in Europe”. She also highlighted that the project is not only focused in people with disabilities but in people who travel with children and all the equipment they require such as prams.

To obey the law

The councilor of Tourism also talked about the need to fulfill with the Law of Accessibility in construction works and projects. “The law must be obeyed in public works as well as in private construction works”, he said. “Many times I am surprised of finding new construction projects that don’t fulfill with the requirements established by law about accessibility. The consequence is that they have to build everything again”. He also insisted on the need to promote social awareness to respect the access areas designed for people with disabilities such as parking lots or sidewalks’ curbs.

The Rural and Marine Environment Ministry has assigned almost 8 million euros for the recovery and improvement of the coastline of Tenerife, taking into consideration the environmental characteristics of each area and facilitating the public access to them.

This information was provided by the secretary to the Sea authority, Juan Carlos Martín, who inaugurated the first stage of the new promenade at the Pueblo Canario town in Costa Adeje.

Martín was accompanied by the delegate to the Canary Government, Carolina Darias, the chief director of the Coastline and Sea Sustainability authority, Alcia Paz, and the major of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga.
The actions of the authorities in Tenerife have been focused in the promenade called “La Nea-Radazul” and the recovery of the beach investing 4.4 million euros in that. Other actions have been taken in the coastline from Radazul to Tabaiba, investing 862,181 euros in that project.
In Adeje, the new promenade has 380meters long and its renewal required almost one million euros. The renewal includes new sidewalks paving, the enlargement of the area to enjoy the sea and the improvement in the accessibility of the public to the different stores located along the area.
Carolina Darias said that this type of construction projects contribute to “improve the economic engine of the island which is tourism”, and that the Spanish Government “is taking strategic actions to establish a sustainable development of the economy of the island”.

The Spanish Government has invested in the Canary Islands a total of 24 million euros to improve the access to the coastline, informed Juan Carlos Martín.

The Town Council of La Palma is finishing the last details for the 23rd edition of the “Feria Insular de Artesanía” (insular craftwork fair) that will be inaugurated next 9th of July in a special area located at the Puerto de Santa Cruz de La Palma where more than 200 craftsmen will show their craftwork.

The fair will be opened everyday form 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. except form the 11th of July, when it will be opened from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
This event is organized in collaboration with the “Dirección General de Industria del Gobierno de Canarias” (industry authority part of the Government of Canarias), the City Council of Santa Cruz de la Palma and the port authorities from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, apart form seven municipalities. This fair will present traditional trades, craftwork workshops for children and wine and cheese tasting.

The Councillor of Craftwork to the Council of La Palma, Cármen Ramos, said that the insular fairs are a great tool to promote the craftwork sector of the island. She invited the citizens as well as the tourists to visit this fair to know and buy the best pieces of local craftwork assuring the quality and finishing of these products.

212 craftsmen form Tenerife will participate in this fair, especially in the textile sector, although there are 51 different modalities such as basketry, pottery, wood, leather, metals and other materials.
There will be a special area in this fair dedicated to local food with a total of 20 stands which will be presenting different local products such as honey, dressings and spirits, bakery, cheese and wines with origin denomination.

Each day, the fair will be focused on two municipalities of the island and their food, traditions and local artwork. There will be special food tasting of each region as well as live shows.