Feautured Activities

This is the first edition of these awards that are born with a vocation for continuity and to highlight the work for quality and professionalism of a strong Galician tourism sector.

The Cluster Tourism of Galicia and the Xunta de Galicia delivered today the nine Ara Solis corresponding to the first edition of the Premios Galicia de Turismo, in a gala celebrated in the Rosalía Theatre of Castro of A Coruña that had the actor and humorist Xavier Veiga as master of ceremonies. The conselleiro of Culture and Tourism, Román Rodríguez, was in charge of making the delivery of the prizes to the national ambassadors, who received an emotional Luz Casal, and international, in the figure of Hong-jo Chun, the ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Spain, a country that in the last five years brought to our region more than 23.000 pilgrims of the Jacobean Route.

In his speech, Román Rodríguez highlighted the weight that the Xacobeo 2021 will have as an engine and lever of change for the Galician economy and tourist sector, at the same time that he highlighted the relevance of the winning projects and people and highlighted their contribution to the good progress of tourism in the Community. He also highlighted the potential of the Galician tourism model, which bets on the deseasonalization of tourism demand, allowing visitors to be attracted during all seasons of the year, and the decentralization of flows, extending the impact of this industry to all municipalities. He recalled that, thanks to this roadmap, Galicia is the Community that leads this year’s tourism growth in Spain, to the point that, to maintain the current evolution, will close the year overcoming the barrier of five million visitors and getting the best tourist data in its history.

For his part, Cesáreo Pardal, president of the Galician Tourism Cluster, made the honorary recognition as Pioneers to the brothers Paco and Moncho Vilas, of Casa Vilas, “for their role in the development of a Galician cuisine of internationally recognized quality”, and thanked the sector as a whole and the public-private collaboration for the fruits of the work of these seven years since the creation of the Cluster, whose work claimed in the construction of “a modern and competitive industry, an industry respectful of the environment and the natural environment. An industry that brings happiness. An industry that is the motor of Galicia and in front of which I want to claim the role of the Cluster Tourism of Galicia in this successful development”.

A Coruña, hostess of the first edition
Inés Rey, mayoress of A Coruña, who hosted the gala, awarded the Scenario Prize to Ribadavia, the most voted location among 24 places in Galicia in the public survey carried out on the web www.premiosgaliciadeturismo.gal. The award was collected by the mayor of the town of Ourense, Cesar Manuel Fernandez Gil who thanked the award and hoped that it also serves to bring more people closer to this population to know their heritage and resources.

The Sustainability Award went to Camino de los Faros for its contribution to the development of sustainable tourism. The award was presented to the president of the association, Cristina Alonso, Belén Montero, director of Pazos y Congresos y Exposiciones de Galicia, and Jesús Picallo, president of Solpor, Asociación de Empresarios del Camino de Santiago a Fisterra-Muxía. The general director of Cultural Heritage of the Xunta de Galicia, María del Carmen Martínez Ínsua, the general director of the SabadellGallego bank, Pablo Junceda, and the treasurer of the Galician Tourism Cluster, Alfonso Martínez, presented the Heritage prize to the restoration project of the Portico de la Gloria of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. The corresponding Ara Solis were collected by the project coordinator, Ana Laborde, the dean of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Segundo Pérez, and the director of the Barrié Foundation, Carmen Arias.

The president, Luis Fernández, and vice-president, César Pariente, of the Ribeira Sacra Tourism Consortium, collected from the hands of Sara Santos, president of the Compostela Hotel Association, and Héctor Cañete, vice-president of the Cluster, the prize for the candidacy of the Ribeira Sacra as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2021 in the Promotion category.
The Event prize, presented by Lorena Varela, manager of the Rías Baixas Wine Route, and Rodrigo Burgos, director of MEGA: Mundo Estrella Galicia, went to the Resurrection Fest. Iván and David Méndez, the people in charge of the festival, collected the award. The director of Expourense, Emma González, and the secretary of the Cluster, César Sánchez-Ballesteros, finally, delivered to the agency specialized in the Way of Santiago Pilgrim Travel the prize in the Avant-garde category.
This first edition, the awards have had the collaboration