The Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, has committed in a recent visit to La Palma to address a series of measures to promote tourism and business development

01.07.2013. In the last campaign, La Palma has suffered a sharp drop in the level of hotel stays due as an immediate cause to the deterioration of air connectivity for both peninsular tourism and Central European tourism. As a background factor, the island has been witnessing a progressive loss of identity and attractiveness as a unique tourist destination, specialized in landscaping, hiking and nature tourism.

La Palma, known regionally as “the beautiful island”, has unique places of extraordinary beauty such as the Caldera de Taburiente National Park or the Tilos Forest, declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and attractions such as the San Antonio and Teneguía volcanoes, arising from the 1971 eruption. The Island has one of the skies with the highest astronomical quality in the world and is the headquarters, in Roque de los Muchachos, of the Observatories of the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC), whose most spectacular facility is the Great Observatory (Grantecan) inaugurated in 2009.

To activate the economy of La Palma, on Monday, July 1, 2013, a ministerial delegation traveled to the Island to discuss with the island and municipal authorities, and with the business community, the implementation of a series of actions of the Ministry for the promotion of tourism and business on the Island.

The delegation was made up of the General Director of TURESPAÑA, the President of the State Company SEGITTUR, the General Director of the Institute of Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), the Deputy Director of the School of Industrial Organization (EOI), the Deputy Director of Digital Economy of the business entity RED.ES, the Director of Corporate Development of the Company ENISA, and a representative of the Undersecretariat, the unit that will coordinate the programming and development of the different measures that are agreed upon. The Ministry invited the authorities of AENA, an agency dependent on Development and responsible for the La Palma airport, to this meeting.

The purpose of the trip from Madrid of this ministerial delegation was to gather information and suggestions from the island and local authorities and the business community on the situation of tourism and the main associated sectors and on the possibilities of action, in the field of powers of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, and open a channel of dialogue for the development of a program of actions that the Minister wishes to undertake to support the Island.