TW
0
Staff Reporter THE Ministry for Tourism will invest 1.3 million euros this year to help develop the tourism projects that are allowing seven designated areas in the Balearic Islands to control their own tourism sector.

These seven areas have been defined as “Q areas” and are Sierra de Tramuntana, Pla i Raiguer, Motjorn i Llevant, North, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera.
These touristic areas will manage their own areas in terms of quality and environmental sustainability and they “will be the best ones to sell their areas”, said Joan Flaquer, the Minister for Tourism, who presented this project yesterday accompanied by Migual Hernández, the Director of the Tourism Quality Institute.

Flaquer explained that this project aims to create “quality areas” and in each of the designated areas, they will be managed by a special team. In this team there will be a Head of Tourism who has had professional experience, a representative for all the different tourism associations in the area and a quality control co-ordinator from the Institute of Quality and Tourism, who will be responsible for managing all the quality plans.

There is “excellent news”, said the Minister for Tourism, as already a total of 1'178 companies and town councils have joined or are in the process of joining up to this project, which shows “the work and interest” in this project.

Furthermore the Balearic Government is really lending a helping hand to this project, not only economically but also technically, so that all public companies who want to get involved in this quality process can do so free of charge this year and in the following years.

The first phase of this project began in 2004, and the aim was to implant the quality plans, said Flaquer. The second phase, started this year is focussed on training and developing the “Q areas” during 2005 and 2006.

This second phase will mean that private companies and public administrations will have to work together.
Amongst the main objectives of this second phase of the project, is to develop the Quality Plans that have been started in all the touristic resorts in the Balearic Islands, and to convert all the town councils, touristic sectors, administrative workers and residents into promoters of their own tourism area.