The mayors and councillors from the inland municipalities of Valencia have gathered this weekend at Cofrentes, where they held the first conference “University of Valencia and Inland Tourism of Valencia: reflections around an economic sector from present and past”. This initiative of the University of Valencia and the Provincial Council of Tourism Terra i Mar expect to create a forum that help to reflect, promote and manage adequately the touristic possibilities of rural lands of Valencia, through the contributions from University`s specialists on this subject.
The Cofrentes Spa hosted these first days of the conference. More than 30 councils from the inland region of Valencia have assisted this meeting in which from Friday and Saturday (9, 10 November) they have analyzed the current problems of tourism industry and they have provided new proposals and initiatives. The opening ceremony was celebrated on Friday. The inauguration was held by the Office of the Vice-Principal for Territorial Projection and Participation, Jorge Hermosilla: The Major of Cofrentes, Raúl Ángel Balufo: and the representative of tourism, Ernesto Sanjuán.
Raúl Ángel Balufo wanted to thank the opportunity that the University and the Provincial Council has given to the Cofrentes Council for choosing this as the heart of the conference. Moreover he manifested that “he wishes that all majors comeback to their municipalities with the key to achieve a quality tourism”.
Jorge Hermosilla, Vice-Principal for Territorial Projection and Participation, pointed out that the objective of this conference is “to provide the basic concepts of inland tourism and to analyse the reality of this industry from the information that specialists in this subject could offer”. On the other hand, he emphasized “the quantity and quality of Cofrentes tourism offer that thanks to its Spa has become a model in business management and tourism at the inland region of Valencia."
Ernesto Sanjuán, representative of Tourism, praised the enthusiasm in which the mayors have received the conference and pointed out that “in this crisis time is necessary to emphasize the importance of tourism as it is still an important tool that allows many people to have a livelihood”.
Miguel Ángel Fernández, director of Cofrentes Spa, played a major role in the opening discourses of the conference. He received congratulations from the University, the Provincial Council and the Cofrentes Consistory; the audience honoured him with a warm applause for having recently been awarded with the Medal of Tourism Merit, an award that has received in recognition to his investment in quality and innovation business strategies.
The concept of tourism and land resources of the inland region of Valencia
Oto Luque I Aigües, full university professor of Social Psychology, opened the floor of the conference reflecting about “What means the concept of tourism today?” For him, “any land has potential for touristic development; all municipalities have unique characteristics that can attract tourism.”
According Oto Luque, “the touristic phenomenon is linked to a model of society, values and lifestyle. We are now in a context of economic crisis but, even so, people still goes in holidays. And in order to get visitors in our towns we must outline the kind of tourists we want, as well as planning the tourist activity (expectations, a consistent offer, professionalism, customer satisfaction and so on).
Emilio Iranzo García, Professor of the Department of Geography, has offered the second presentation titled “The touristic resources of the inland region of Valencia; A territorial panoramic”. Iranzo pointed out that “inland towns are rich in land resources (Natural Parks, micro-reserves, natural monuments, volcanoes, caves, rivers…) which have great tourism potential and can be exploited allowing a large local development”.
For Emilio Iranzo, “it is necessary to carry out tasks of identification, diagnosis and empowerment of territorial resources of inland regions because all of them represent the raw material of tourist development and along with the offer of accommodation, infrastructure and human resources, forms the tourism product of the inland region of Valencia.”
Competitiveness, experience and family business in rural tourism
Amparo Cervera, full university professor of Marketing and Market Research, opened the session of afternoon conferences reflecting on the “management of the tourist experience in order to enhance the resources of a destination to inland territories”. For her, “the tourism market is changing constantly, faces demographic transformations (household structure, life expectancy), sociocultural (consumers more trained and demanding) and geographical changes (globalization, interactivity and technology without barriers). Hence we have to adapt our management to improve competitiveness and encourage customer service”.
According to Amparo Cervera, “the modern consumer looks for unique experiences with their active participation in them. Therefore, we have to attract tourists by promoting their experience with us; we have to try that the costumer will be satisfied during the whole process of the experience: inspiring tourists, helping them with the planning, the purchase, the reserve, the travel, and encourage them to share their experience, thus, making for us viral marketing”.
The second presentation from the afternoon, by César Camisón, full university professor in Management and Administration analyzed the situation of “family business in rural tourism: importance, characteristics and current competitiveness.” Camisón affirmed that “the profitability and productivity of these businesses have plummeted over the last ten or twelve years and today is much lower than non-family businesses.”
Cesar Camisón ended his presentation explaining what public officials can do to improve the competiveness of family tourist business: “recognize the unique nature of this type of business and favour their development through reducing fiscal costs of generational changes, encourage entrepreneurship, collaborate in facilitating access to funding, promote activities that could help to strengthen the management and human team of the family company, facilitate their adaptation to technological changes and finally develop activities that will encourage the implementation of regulatory and coordination instruments of family and business”.
The case of Cofrentes Spa
Miguel Ángel Fernández Torán, director of Cofrentes Spa, closed the conference sessions with a presentation titled “Concept and materialization of a singular tourist destination: the resort`s spa Cofrentes”.
Miguel Ángel Fernández explained in detail the process of creating the Spa, and how they have become one of the most important companies in Valencia region. For Miguel Ángel Fernández the key in any business should be “the sustainability that is achieved by having good customers. In addition it must offer a good product and be capable of adapting this product to the changes that the customer could suffer. Identify the best market segments and find marketing channels is also vital to maintain and improve the company.”
Conclusions and tours
The last part of the conference was dedicated to a forum for debating. The majors and councilors took part making questions or claims, while specialists from the University tried to solve all the doubts and contribute with their perspective to the debate. To end the session the Vice-Principal Jorge Hermosilla concluded that, “organizing this meeting was a success; as a matter of fact there is a necessity of advice in the Councils of the inland region”. He also said that “it is very important to insist on the relationships between the different actors: public administrations, universities and businessmen, we need a plan in a local and supra-local level and develop a strategic plan.”Jorge Hermosilla emphasized the “importance of management, marketing and leadership as the key to business success,” finally; he stressed the commitment of the University of Valencia with Valencian councils”.
The Major of Cofrentes, Raúl Ángel Balufo, praised the event as “a great success”, also highlighted that he feels very proud of the businessmen of his town that have erected Cofrentes as a business referent in all areas.
Thus concluded the conference sessions, but today Saturday the presentations are still in progress. From 9:00, a series of guided tours will show the attendants the experience of inland tourism: the touristic offer of Cofrentes and the Spa. At 12:00 hours there will be the closing ceremony.
With this initiative the University of Valencia, through the Office of the Vice-Principal for Territorial Projection and Participation aims to transmit the knowledge of academic and research personnel of UVEG to local authorities, hoping that they put in practice in their localities the ideas that have obtained from specialists of the University.
This conference has born with a spirit of continuity, in the early months of next year it will be a second meeting. But in this case it will deal with coastal and maritime tourism and will be held in Cullera city.
Last update: 10 de november de 2012 22:30.
News release
