Salou. Costa Dorada. 07 August 2021.
Salou has made a commitment to leisure and entertainment that has strategically positioned it as one of the most powerful tourist destinations in the Mediterranean and, in addition, it works to face the future of digitization and modernization and to preserve natural values and sustainability of its landscape.
These are the main ideas behind the proclamation of the Salou Festival, the Nits Daurades, delivered on August 6, 2021 by Francisco Javier García Cuenca, president of the Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero, from Alicante.
The town crier highlighted the qualities of the environment and the location of Salou that make the municipality a very attractive place to rest and spend the holidays. But in order to compete with other Mediterranean destinations, in its day a strategic bet was made on leisure and entertainment with PortAventura, which has been a great success completed with Ferrari Land. "Now, the Hard Rock project may be the icing on the cake," Garcia Cuenca said.
The president of the Hotel Technological Institute also pointed out that Salou is positioning itself to face the two most important challenges of the future: technological disruption (digitization, artificial intelligence, robotization...) and to respond to the increasing demands of the visitor, especially in terms of to the sustainability and preservation of the natural environment of the capital of the Costa Dorada.
In this sense, Salou is a founding member of the Alliance of Tourist Municipalities, which integrates the 8 municipalities of sun and beach destinations with the most overnight stays in Spain, and is working to prepare itself as a smart or intelligent municipality. For all these reasons, García Cuenca said that Salou is at the forefront and, referring to King Jaume I who set sail from Salou to conquer Mallorca, he said that "today is your time to set course for the future."
During the proclamation, he alternated between Spanish and Catalan and made various winks paraphrasing classic songs by Catalan authors such as Serrat.
For his part, the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, opened the proclamation ceremony by highlighting the city's Fiesta Mayor as a meeting place to share with everyone a diversity of moments and the identity of Salou.
Granados introduced the town crier and explained that the Hotel Technological Institute is an innovation center that helps tourist destinations to face challenges such as digitization to improve their competitiveness.
At the end of the speeches, the Councilor for Culture and Festivities, Xavier Montalà, handed the town crier a commemorative plaque and the mayor gave him the highest award in the city, which is a reproduction of the sculpture of King Jaume I, one of the places of most emblematic attractions of Salou.
The proclamation ended with the fireworks at the start of the Salou Nits Daurades Festival, which was lit by the town crier from the balcony of the headquarters of the Tourist Board of the capital of the Costa Dorada.
