This year, Girona City Council will create the Tourism Observatory, a tool that will allow the council to commission studies that analyze the economic return of municipal policies in this area.
The vice mayor of Girona, Gemma Geis, has explained that the organization is ready and will be activated when the council decides to commission the first study.
The City Council will do it together with the Faculty of Tourism of the University of Girona (UdG), which will be in charge of preparing these reports. Gemma Geis believes that it is necessary “to have data to have all the information” and she believes that the results of these reports will help combat certain discourses.
The Tourism Observatory will be an organization initially formed by the Girona City Council and the Faculty of Tourism.
Gemma Geis opens the door to adding more actors. She believes that the UdG “should be an ally of the city” and that is why it will be the priority partner in the orders that are made, but she does not rule out participating in other institutions related to this sector.
This tool will be used to study the economic return of public policies in the field of tourism. “We need data from the world of tourism,” said the vice mayor. From this table, the city council will raise the need to analyze different public policies and their return to the city.
“Sometimes there are actions that return much more money to the city than what the public administrations put in,” said Gemma Geis. That is why she considers that the results will serve to account for the aid that is made, but also so that citizens understand the result of the investments that exist in the tourism sector.
The Tourism Observatory falls under the Economic Promotion area and for 2024 it already has a budget allocation. This will allow the local government to carry out the tasks at the Faculty of Tourism of the UdG. “Public policies must be held accountable and it must be done with data,” reaffirmed Gemma Geis.
In fact, the university has various lines of research in the field of tourism such as the study of positive and negative effects of tourism at an economic, social, cultural and technological level, the ethics of tourism or new typologies of tourism.
These are lines of research led by transversal research groups that link the tourism sector with the economic, social or natural environment. From there, data can be obtained at different levels that will guide the council when developing certain policies from the Economic Promotion Area of ??Girona City Council, such as subsidies for certain events.