The Tourism Ministry of the Government of the Canary Islands has already started the procedures through its recently created Provisional Administrative Unit (PAU) for the management and control of European funds for the development of a total of ten action programs with a budget of more than 332,836,000 euros, charged to the Next Generation EU funds for the period 2021-2026.
The objective is to create a strategy to reform the Canarian economic model around the development of a sustainable and resilient tourism model; the digital transformation of tourist destinations and companies; the promotion of competitiveness through the development of the tourism product; the promotion of Canarian industry and the strengthening of the commercial and tourism sector of the Canary Islands.
Specifically, this Government department, led by Yaiza Castilla, manages six plans charged to the React-EU program, with a budget forecast for the period 2021-2023 of 75 million euros and four plans from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism Funds (MRR), with an estimate of 257.8 million euros for its management until 2026.
The head of Tourism explained that the work of this PAU will not be limited to being "a mere vehicle for transmitting money from these funds to the final beneficiaries of the islands" (councils, town halls and private initiative) in accordance with the objectives set by Brussels and the lines already drawn in the Spain Can Plan of the central Government. "What we are going to do is share responsibility with the final beneficiaries, helping and accompanying them to achieve the recovery and resilience objectives for which these funds are intended," Castilla clarified.
"We are going to adapt to the reality of each local corporation or private entity, many of which do not have sufficient structure to manage these funds, and for which they are preparing from training actions to the translation into a simpler language of all the European regulations that apply to these funds, or support in the process of executing the projects", Castilla explained.
For the projects charged to the two Next Generation EU programs, calls for subsidies, contracts through the entities dependent on the Ministry, such as Promotur and Hecansa, and public-private collaborations are contemplated. Most of them are limited to the area of Tourism, although transversally also to other sectors.
In this sense, charged to the React-EU is the line of tourism promotion, already being executed by Promotur, with an amount of 39.9 million euros, as well as the programs, still pending development, of tourism infrastructures; of subsidies to projects of sustainability, competitiveness and safe destination; and projects of transformation, resilience and sustainable growth of the tourism sector of the Canary Islands.
