The Cabildo of Lanzarote presented this Monday, June 15, the Lanzarote Summer University 2026, which this year will have as its central theme the management of sports tourism destinations, a strategic area where education, tourism, sport, professional training, and tourism promotion converge.
Under the title “Management of Sports Tourism Destinations” and with the slogan “Discover the keys to success in sports tourism!”, the program will be held on July 9 and 10 at Marina Hub Lanzarote, in morning and afternoon sessions, with a training proposal aimed at professionals in the tourism, sports, institutional, academic, and business sectors, as well as young university students and all those interested in retraining, expanding knowledge, or deepening their understanding of the role of sport as a driver of territorial development.
The new edition was presented by the Minister of Education of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Ascensión Toledo; the CEO of SPEL-Turismo Lanzarote, Héctor Fernández; the Vice-Rector for Culture, Sport and Society of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, José Miguel Álamo; the Director of the University School of Tourism of Lanzarote, Eva Crespo; and the Coordinator of the Lanzarote Summer University, Juan Antonio Carreño.
The proposal will bring together professionals, experts, academics, and institutional representatives for two days to address sports tourism from a practical and specialized perspective, with presentations, debate panels, and applied workshops on planning, product design, marketing, governance, destination capacity, and coexistence between residents, visitors, and the environment.
The course will have a capacity of 150 places. Additionally, participants will be able to obtain academic credit, corresponding to 25 lecture hours. Registrations: https://beta.ecoentradas.com/events/410/shows.
One of the main attractions of this edition will be the participation of Carolina Marín, Princess of Asturias Award 2024, Olympic champion, world champion, and European champion, who will headline the inspiring session “The World as a Track: High-Performance Sport, Tourism, and Resilience.”
The Minister of Education of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Ascensión Toledo, highlighted that this Summer University “reinforces the commitment of the Cabildo with open, useful training connected to the real challenges of the island”. She added that “it is an opportunity for young university students, professionals, and citizens in general to retrain, qualify, and access first-level knowledge without leaving Lanzarote”.
For his part, the CEO of SPEL-Turismo Lanzarote, Héctor Fernández, stressed that “sports tourism is one of the strategic lines to continue positioning Lanzarote as a differentiated, competitive, and sustainable destination”. In this regard, he pointed out that “the island must not only attract events and athletes, but also generate knowledge, planning, and management models that allow for the ordering of that growth”.
The Vice-Rector of Culture, Sport and Society of the ULPGC, José Miguel Álamo, valued “the commitment of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to bring university training closer to Lanzarote and open learning spaces linked to the territory”. Likewise, he pointed out that “this edition fully connects with the vocation of a public university that wants to transfer knowledge and respond to the social and professional needs of the Canary Islands”.
The director of the University School of Tourism of Lanzarote, Eva Crespo, highlighted that “this course allows us to unite academic knowledge with the professional reality of a tourism sector that needs increasingly prepared and specialized profiles”. Crespo insisted that “the management of sports tourism requires training, analysis, innovation, and a practical look at the challenges of the destination”.
The coordinator of the Summer University of Lanzarote, Juan Antonio Carreño, explained that the program “has been designed with a very practical approach, so that attendees can take away concrete tools and a clear vision of how a sports tourism product is built”. He added that “Lanzarote is an extraordinary natural laboratory to talk about sport, territory, events, sustainability, and tourism promotion”.
An attractive and very practical program
On Thursday, July 9, the day will be dedicated to product planning and design. The program includes an institutional opening with Fernando Clavijo Batlle, president of the Canary Islands; a debate panel on segmentation and value proposition in sports tourism; a presentation on governance models; a practical workshop on product design; a presentation on commercialization; an applied workshop on sports sponsorship to sell the territory; and a debate panel on current challenges in sports tourism planning.
Among the expected participants are Eduardo Blanco Pereira, president of AGAXEDE and former councilor for Tourism and Sports of the A Coruña City Council; Marlene Merle, CEO of Benty; José Hernández Herrera, president of CIDECA, Canary Islands Sports Industry Cluster; Carlos Rodríguez Robaina, professor and researcher at ULL; Antonio Jesús González Fernández, from Almería Sports Destination; Alejandro Serrano Rodríguez, consultant at the Canary Observatory of Physical Activity and Sports; Juan Carlos Albuixech, CEO of Sands Beach Active; Néstor Domínguez Domínguez and José Manuel Rivero Déniz, from Kairos Sport Marketing; as well as representatives from EUTL, Paradisus Meliá Salinas, Marina Rubicón-Lanzarote Sailing Center, and SPEL-Turismo Lanzarote.
On Friday, July 10, the program will focus on the management, capacity, and governance of sports tourism destinations. The day will include a conference on capacity management by Ana Vallejo Gil, founder of MQSostenible, Sport & Green Events; a debate panel on coexistence between residents, visitors, and the environment; a practical workshop on diagnosing the impacts of sports tourism, led by Sergio Suárez Rosa, coordinator of the Projects Area at Innovaris Consultores; and a closing conference by José Manuel Sanabria Díaz, vice-minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, titled “Governing Success: Towards a Governance Model for Sports Tourism in the Canary Islands”.
The program will conclude with an inspiring session featuring Carolina Marín, one of the greatest figures in Spanish and international sports, who will share her experience from high performance, resilience, and global projection of sports.
With this new edition, the Lanzarote Summer University reinforces its role as a space for training, reflection, and knowledge transfer, while positioning sports tourism as an opportunity to continue advancing towards a more specialized, competitive, and sustainable destination model.
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