The Cabildo of Gran Canaria has hired the Spanish folk singer Isabel Pantoja to sponsor the island for 160,5000 euros. In this line and as a result of the controversy generated by this information, the Minister of the Presidency of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Teodoro Sosa (NC), has defended that the sponsorship contract with the artist falls within the "normal activity" of promoting the island and its amount is justified by its "advertising return."
In statements provided by his department, Sosa details that this contract is based on a producer's proposal for 17 concerts throughout Spain, including the one that the singer offered in Gran Canaria in August 2023, which was not "different from what this Ministry normally does every year with that and many other concerts" that promote the image of Gran Canaria.
And he emphasizes that the 17 concerts agreed with Isabel Pantoja "are perfectly quantified by the advertising return", something that he considers that "the data supports."
Sosa has argued that, through concerts and communication networks, this promotion will reach more than one million people.
He wanted to "make it clear" that during the year "many other sponsorship files are carried out, such as those related to the Bombastic or Granca Live Fest music festivals, or such as those signed in the past for concerts by artists such as Raphael or Elton John.
"It is not the first time, far from it, that Gran Canaria has this type of sponsorship with the tour of singers", obeying a "return that is valued and quantified" and that "is not an arbitrary criterion, but rather it is taxed and measured with direct spectators and also the indirect ones" that the artist in question may have.
He added that "we are not the only administration that sponsors this tour" since while the Cabildo sponsors "17 concerts for 160,000 euros, the Government of the Canary Islands also through Promotur has also made tourist promotions at the national level with her and with other singers", specifically with Isabel Pantoja, he detailed, Promotur's promotion is 130,000 euros.
"Precisely those who criticize the contract by the Cabildo, the Popular Party, direct the tourist promotion area of the Government of the Canary Islands" and "I don't see why they don't also criticize the Promotur contract in the same way and with the same forcefulness."
The Cabildo, Sosa insisted, "is doing things properly with a direct and indirect promotion of the island of Gran Canaria with 17 destinations throughout the peninsular and also Canary geography" because it understands that the advertising return "compensates" with that impact "on more than a million people directly" who are going to "be able to enjoy the tourist image of this island of Gran Canaria either through the concert or through the repercussion of the same, as reflected in the contract."
The contract also establishes the recording of a documentary, and the proposal to "have in each of the concerts a stand with tourist information of Gran Canaria and promotional videos both on their social networks of the singer and also of the concerts that are held" in those 17 destinations throughout Spain.
He has lamented the criticisms that have arisen with the contract with Isabel Pantoja where "the image of this person and the criticism of the yellow press are mixed" to "somehow tarnish the work that has been carried out for years to promote the destination of Gran Canaria."
