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The president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster participated today in the presentation of the “S” seal of Sustainability, promoted by the Institute for Tourism Quality of Spain.

Consolidating Galicia as a safe, intelligent and sustainable destination from an environmental, economic and social point of view is one of the objectives of the Master Plan 2021-2023 Galicia Safe Destination. This was recalled today by the president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster at the presentation of the “S” for Sustainability, organised by the Institute for Tourism Quality in Spain (ICTE), with the participation of its director general, Fernando Fraile, and the director of the Galicia Tourism Agency, Nava Castro.

The new ICTE seal, presented today at the Galician School of Public Administration, offers companies in the tourism sector a tool to achieve the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is the third seal that the ICTE will have after the “Q” for Tourism Quality and the Safe Tourism certificate, presented in 2020.

In his speech, the president of the Tourism Cluster pointed out that “sustainability is the axis of the tourism strategy for Galicia that we share from the public and private spheres. It is the only one possible now and in the future, if we want a future for tourism”. That is why he stressed that “sustainable development is a responsibility that all companies have to assume as part of the community. It is also one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030”.

Cesáreo Pardal stressed that Galicia’s commitment to sustainability is not recent “but we are reinforcing it through close public-private collaboration with initiatives such as the Sustainable Product Club, within the framework of the agreement signed between the Cluster and the Galicia Tourism Agency, or through the different Sustainability Plans in destinations that the regional administration is developing with the support of the Next Generation funds”.

The president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster pointed out his confidence that this type of initiatives contribute to Galicia adding “S” for Sustainability as well as in the capacity of the companies, which have already demonstrated how their effort for quality has been rewarded. In fact, Galicia is the second community with the most Q seals in the national classification, with more than 300, and the first to increase the number of Qs received last year. A quality and an effort that allowed last year to place the community in the top positions of the recovery of tourism in Spain, with just over 4.2 million travellers staying and nearly 9 million nights in the set of regulated accommodation, in addition to 180,000 Compostelas, 40,000 more than expected to close the Way of St. James in 2021.