The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, the councilor of the Centers for Art, Culture and Tourism, Ángel Vázquez, and the mayors of Tinajo, Haría and Yaiza, Jeśus Machín, Alfredo Villalba and Óscar Noda, respectively, have signed this Friday morning a new agreement for the management of the canon.
Betancort and Vázquez have explained the details of a document that establishes corrective elements in the fixed part of the canon that the town councils receive for each access ticket. “Thus”, Vázquez highlighted, “from July 1, Haría will receive two euros for each ticket sold to the Cueva de los Verdes and Jameos del Agua, and will maintain the 0.30 cents that it currently receives for each ticket to the Mirador del Río; Tinajo, for its part, will receive 2.20 euros for each ticket to the Montañas del Fuego, and Yaiza will increase its income thanks to the increase in the collection of Montañas del Fuego after the update of rates carried out last January”.
The councilor of the Tourist Centers has explained that different scenarios have been considered until defining a document “that will allow us to continue building and making this island more competitive by reversing the benefits generated by the update of rates to the municipalities that opted for a traditional development model”. In addition, he has announced that “the revision of the canon will be linked to the increase in the CPI that will be applied annually to the access rates to the Tourist Centers”.
Oswaldo Betancort, for his part, has stressed that “the good management carried out in the CACTs by the CEO, Ángel Vázquez, has shown that the increase in ticket prices has not only served to value the jewels of the crown of the island but that, with a smaller number of visitors, it has allowed to increase the collection and reach this agreement, an island agreement, which will generate greater wealth for the municipalities of Lanzarote and, by extension, for the population of Lanzarote and La Graciosa”.
Betancort, who has thanked “the spirit and goodwill” that all parties have shown during the negotiation, wanted to remember, also, what is one of the main and most important tasks of the Tourist Centers, which is to reverse the wealth they generate on the population of Lanzarote and Graciosa”, and celebrated, in this sense, the prominent role that the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Entity launched by Vázquez will have, “an essential instrument that will mean very significant contributions to different areas of insular interest such as sports, culture, social or inclusion, among others”.
“General satisfaction”
The mayors of the municipalities of Haría, Tinajo and Yaiza, Alfredo Villalba, Jesús Machín and Óscar Noda, respectively, wanted to publicly thank “the predisposition, generosity and vision” of the councilor of the Tourist Centers during the negotiation of an agreement that “will contribute to continue building the municipality”.
Villalba spoke of a “historic day for Haría”, and thanked the president of the Cabildo and the councilor of the Tourist Centers for an agreement that “guarantees the future of the municipality”. Meanwhile, Jesús Machín described the day as “special, thanks to an agreement that gives us life”. Noda, for his part, referred to a “historic moment for the municipalities and for the island”.
“End to litigation”
The agreement reached implies, de facto, the end of the legal disputes derived from the canon that have originated in recent years. “It means that the town councils renounce the legal disputes that they maintain open with the Tourist Centers with respect to this matter” Vázquez concluded.