On the 16th March, 2018 between 9.30 and 11.30h took place the second Balearic Islands Stakeholders meeting with representatives from the business sector, business associations, tourism SMEs, and the university. The federation of local municipalities (FELIB) excused attendance to the meeting.
Balearic Islands Stakeholders were welcomed by Mr Jaume Alzamora, Balearic Islands Tourism Board Managing Director, who explained BRANDTour objectives, partners, expected results, policy themes and updated on the project's progress. After this, Marga Picornell, BRANDTour project coordinator for the region, introduced the 18 Good Practices that were presented by the project partners to the audience at the ILE events of Palma (Oct. 2017) and Valkenburg (Dec. 2017).
These Good Practices were discussed one by one with the stakeholders to analyse and explore possible ways of transferring them into the Balearic Islands tourism system and territory. In general, all the Good practices were considered very interesting. All participants agreed that BRANDTour project is offering them a unique opportunity to know about what's going on on tourism around the different European regions.
After a discussion they decided that the good practice "Love me in Tuscany", weddings product, could be easily adapted into our region since we already have the necessary tourist infrastructure and offer. However the purpose for developing this new product would be different from Tuscany: instead of attracting new tourists to the region (increase flows) our goal would be to spread them along the year, so that it can help us breaking seasonality. Our islands are just 2h away from the main European cities, so this could be a good winter product.
To finish off, Marga Picornell mentioned that she is pleased to notice that this meeting has confirmed that private sector preferences on BP are in line with the priorities that the Balearic Islands Tourism Government foresees to achieve. This is a true proof about the good collaboration and mutual understanding between both sectors.
The meeting ended with the invitation of ATB Managing Director Mr Jaume Alzamora to the regional stakeholders to participate in the next Stakeholder meeting which is planned for the 2nd semester 2018.