"The renovation of Puerto del Carmen will contribute to the competitiveness, profitability, diversification and qualification of its accommodation offer." With these words, the Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Fajardo Feo, began the explanation of the lines of action that the Autonomous Executive has devised to reconvert the tourist area of Puerto del Carmen. Fajardo Feo explained that the action plan will focus on this Lanzarote town and also on San Agustín, a tourist center belonging to Gran Canaria.
In this way, the Government of the Canary Islands has devised a subsidy aimed at hoteliers and apartment owners that allows "to incentivize the development and renovation of the obsolete accommodation plant." For this, they will allocate a budget of almost three million euros that will be allocated to Puerto del Carmen and San Agustín, although there is no distribution between the two locations.
The Minister of Tourism has assured that the minimum investment that must be made to be able to receive the subsidy is "15,000 euros per room in a hotel and per apartment in a non-hotel place", said Manuel Fajardo. In addition, the Minister also added that the maximum amount that will be subsidized is 50% of the total investment "although depending on compliance with a series of evaluation criteria that we have developed."
The criteria are: that it adapts to the conditions of the two nuclei specified in the studies, that additional services of new technologies and environmental media are incorporated, that the accommodation modality changes, that a change in the category of the establishment occurs and that suppressions of the accommodation place are made.
"Thus, we comply with the mandate of the Tourism Planning Guidelines that establishes the need to create subsidies for the differentiation and diversification of the tourist offer," said Manuel Fajardo Feo. The Minister also assured that since the publication of these subsidies in the Official Gazette, "the owners will have 30 days to apply for the aid".