Benidorm will ask the Regional Government for recognition as a ‘tourist municipality’ based on the new regional decree

The mayor, Toni Pérez, will raise a motion to the next plenary to ask the Reginal Government for the "Tourism Municipality of the Valencian Community" for Benidorm, based on the new regional decree passed on January 10 that develops the Tourism Law , Leisure and Hospitality of 2018. This has announced today by the mayor himself after participating in Logroño in the Assembly of the Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI).

Toni Pérez recalled that "with the Tourism Law of 1998" Benidorm was recognized as a Tourist Municipality so that the city "could access by call to a compensation fund" provided by the Generalitat Valenciana. However, that compensation "was suspended with the approval of the new Tourism Law."

Now, once the regulatory decree of the Statute of the Tourist Municipality is approved, it is “essential to take steps to obtain that recognition” that allows access to regional financing that “palliates the economic effort that as a tourist municipality we must make permanently, far beyond our own registered population, in the provision of the services of all who visit us ”.

The mayor explained that with this request, which should be sent to the Regional Secretariat of Tourism, "Benidorm is at the forefront and doing its homework", since the municipalities that were declared tourist in the previous Law of 1998, have "two years of term ”to adapt to the new regulations and fulfill their obligations. In this sense, Benidorm is the first city that has announced that it will request adaptation to the new decree.

Likewise, it has been “sure” that the motion “will have the unanimous support of the entire Corporation”.

He also clarified that this request is being promoted “without prejudice to the fact that we continue to demand from the Government of Spain a financing in which Benidorm fits as a tourist municipality”, since “we are the world's first certified Intelligent Tourist Destination (DTI), but unfortunately not we have at this moment recognition neither at regional nor national level of that condition of tourist municipality ”.

Finally, according to the motion that the mayor will take to full, "the City of Benidorm and the local private sector have not hesitated to align with this new regulatory framework", despite being "rigorous regarding the obligations" of the municipalities and "lax about their rights." In any case, Benidorm supports the regulations “with the hope placed in which the real needs of the tourist municipalities of the Region will have a response to their financing, at least directly proportional to the contribution they make to regional GDP, employment and to the social and sustainable development of our territory and its people ”.