Case Study: Ciudad Real Results of a jointdevelopment plan and the Don Quijote s 400th Anniversary celebrations

Transcription

1 Case Study: Ciudad Real Results of a jointdevelopment plan and the Don Quijote s 400th Anniversary celebrations By Mikel Asensio Brouard and Manuel Mortari Fernandez, UAM 1. History, context and Tourism background in Ciudad Real Fig. 1, Ciudad Real, position in Spain. The city of Ciudad Real is located in the central part of the Iberic peninsula, 200 km south of Madrid, on the central meseta, at a height of 628 m. above sea level. It is the capital of its province, and belongs to the Castilla- La Mancha region. According to the National Institute for Statistics, the town counts inhabitants, of which the 55% is comprised between 20 and 60 years old, and 22% under 20. The economy of the city has been traditionally based on the primary sector, but in the last half century has shifted to the services sector. It is now the most important, together with some wine and food industries, as well as hunting activities. Ciudad Real was founded as a Walldefended town by king Alfonso X The Wise in 1255, in order to thwart the increasing power of the military orders in that area (in particular, the Calatrava order). It is only in 1420 that the town receives the title of City, being called from that moment on Ciudad Real (Real City). For a long period, Jews, Muslims and Christians coexisted peacefully in the town. This was soon reflected into a three-neighbourhoods urban structure. The city flourished in the late 15th century thanks to its textile, leather and wine industries, together with some administrative functions attributed by the Catholic Kings. However, the expulsions of Jews and Muslims (with the subsequent lack of craftsmen and manpower), and the move of administrative offices to other cities, lead to an economic recession, aggravated by the loss of the status of capital of its province in In the next century the situation becomes

2 better as the city returns to its capital tradition (the status (1833) and the railway links it constructed before the 19th century that with Madrid (1866). In the 20th century, survive are scattered in a modern urban after the great migrations of the Sixties, tissue). The main consequence of this the economic situation of the city handicap is the ignorance and disdain of improves progressively, following the the trend of industrial development of the monuments and important buildings of whole country. An important factor of their city. residents very few towards buildings the few the growth of the city is the opening of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (1995) and the high-speed train railway (1992), with the subsequent impulse to the sector of services and commerce. The extraordinary growth of the city in the last 20 years can be measured in the increase of its population, from inhabitants in the Eighties to almost Fig. 2, View of Ciudad Real. business tourism, where the hotel rooms 2. Tourism Development Strategy: The "Plan de Dinamización de Tierra de Caballeros y Tablas de Daimiel" reached a number of 685 in year Ciudad Real lacks a tourism tradition, in According to the interview with the the terms that it understands tourism, Culture and Tourism Councillor of the associated to leisure. However, the city, to growth of its economy in the last years, understand the potential of tourism in together with the connection to the the region, in the early years of 21st high-speed railway AVE that links century. It is especially interested in Madrid and Sevilla, encouraged the rural tourism and cultural tourism. business tourism, generating a series of However, Ciudad Real had an important infrastructures in the city. On the other handicap of hand, the general development of rural Cultural Tourism, which is the little tourism and cultural tourism lead a relevance of built heritage, and the lack series of towns in the province of nowadays (including students). This sudden growth had consequences also in the sector of the municipality for the started development of any built heritage enhancement

3 Ciudad Real to realise their potential as destinations for this kind of tourism, and to find a way to unite their efforts for the general good. The result of this situation was the drawing of the Plan de dinamización de Tierra de Caballeros y Tablas de Daimiel. Tierra de caballeros refers to the rich built heritage of the province, related in part to the re-conquest wars and to the novel Don Quijote de La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Tablas de Daimiel refers to an important nature reserve located about 30 km northeast of Ciudad Real. The municipalities of Almagro, Ciudad Real, Daimiel, Valdepeñas, Villanueva de los Infantes and Villarrubia de los Ojos created a Mancomunidad, a consortium of cities, and applied for the concession of a dynamisation plan and funds for the structuring of a tourism offer and the improvement of infrastructures. Fig. 3, Ciudad Real, the Municipality. The Dynamisation Plans are addressed to destinations that are driving their tourism and have some basic infrastructures but want to ensure a sustainable, competitive and economically reliable development. Furthermore, in many cases the dynamisation plans aim to the diversification of the typical sun & beach, developing new products and destinations with cultural, wildlife, sport, shopping and gastronomic relevance (among other). In Spain this kind of plan comes out of a series of national framework plans for tourism competitivity: FUTURES ( ) and PICTE ( ), launched in the early nineties by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce. The first framework plan was created to reduce and correct the negative impacts

4 (mainly ecological and in terms of town planning) of thirty years of wild tourism development, and the second one was created after assessing the success of its predecessor, with the same goals. More specifically, the Dynamisation plans were created in the 1996 Tourism Sectorial Conference. The investments, financed equally by a Collective Agreement of local, regional and national administrations, are distributed in three or four years, and they are used to prepare the natural or built heritage and historical resources for tourist consumption. The most frequent actions involve the improvement of lighting in downtown areas, the conservation and restoration of built heritage, the reinforcement of public services (mainly the transport), the construction of museums, visitor centres and viewpoints, the display of signposts in trekking routes, the increase of the hotel and restaurant offer, and the construction or improvement of Tourist Information Offices. In relation to the Excellence Plans, to which they are similar in many aspects, the Dynamisation Plans correspond to a lower stage of Tourism development. In the specific case of this Plan de Dinamización, the parties that signed the agreement were the Ministry of Economy, the Junta of Castilla-La Mancha (regional administration) the association of businessmen of Ciudad Real (CEOE-CEPYME) and the above mentioned cities that constitute the Mancomunidad. Its planned length was of three years, from 2001 to 2004, and the total budget amounted to 1,80 Millions of Euros (source: Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce), to be distributed among the members of the Mancomunidad. Beside the plan of dynamisation, whose concrete actions we will examine later, Ciudad Real also benefited another extraordinary financing: the celebration of the 400 th anniversary of the novel Don Quijote de La Mancha. This celebration, promoted by the national government, and financed with European, national, regional, local and private funds, aimed to destroy the image of Castilla-La Mancha as an underdeveloped area, and promote that of a modern, dynamic region, interesting not only as a tourist destination but also as a modern and developed territory, suitable for investments and competitive with other Spanish or European areas (source: Home-pages of the Plan and of the 400 th Anniversary Celebration).

5 3. Concrete actions within Cultural Tourism Strategy A series of objectives were defined, in order to achieve the generic goals of both the Plan de dynamisation and the 400 th anniversary Celebration: Increase the quality of the tourism services. Enhance the monumental, and natural resources of the municipality. Enlarge and improve public-use areas. Improve the public services. Increase, diversify and improve the complementary offer. Enhance the tourism resources. Create new tourism products. Fig. 4, Ciudad Real, Museo del Quijote. Develop among residents and local agents an interest and sensibility for Tourism Quality aspects. Foster a professional and high quality Tourism Services Offer. Enhance and develop the cultural aspects related to the Quijote Route. Compile an exhaustive inventory of all the artistic, cultural, educative, and social features of the Castilla-La Mancha region related to the Don Quijote and its entourage. Plan a rich offer of events and activities for the years 2004 and 2005, and strategic plans for the offer beyond 2005 The objectives generated a series of concrete actions, distributed among all the cities of the Mancomunidad and their respective territory. In the specific case of Ciudad Real, the municipality realised that, rather than structuring the Cultural Offer around an almost inexistent built heritage, it would make more sense to try to articulate all the tourism offer around the element for which Ciudad Real is best known in Spain, that is figure of Don Quijote (whose fictitious adventures are located precisely in La Mancha, the province of the city). One of the most relevant actions, related with the creation of new products and the development of the cultural offer related with the Quijote Route, was the construction of a Don Quijote Museum that hosts a permanent collection and a library

6 specialised in Don Quijote-related bibliography. Fig.5, Quijote s Clock. Another important action, related with the same objectives, was the installation of a tourist attraction, a clock with animated figures (inspired by the Don Quijote s characters) on the Plaza Mayor. In the same line, the Municipality started an open air museum project by installing in public spaces statues inspired by the same subject (there are currently four of these statues). This strategy is reflected also in the choice of the name of other elements of the city, as for instance the future private International Airport Don Quijote, the Handball pavilion (the Quijote Arena ), or the Teatro Quijano. On the other hand, regarding Tourism services issues, the municipality opened a Tourism office in 2001, which not only provides information, but also counts the number of tourists and retrieves a basic visitors profile. Concerning the diversification of the offer, the city counted before the plan with 4 museums, that now are 5 with the Don Quijote Museum. The theatre has a program of activities that is appealing also to residents in Madrid, thanks to the excellent connection with the AVE railway. Beside this, many fiestas like the Pandorga, mainly addressed to a young audience, give to the city a very festive atmosphere appreciated also by adult audience. Fig. 6, Ciudad Real, La Pandorga s fair. The Plan of Dynamisation Tierra de Caballeros-Tablas de Daimiel officially expired in 2004, and the IV Centenario celebrations were limited to the year What are the outcomes of these efforts and investments? According to the Municipality, the results of the actions have been positive, mainly in terms of visitors numbers. However, after the evaluation carried by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid team,

7 partner of the PICTURE project, the results should be put in perspective. The UAM tested in Ciudad Real, during part of year 2005 and 2006, a Cultural Offer Quality Monitoring tool specifically developed for the PICTURE project. This tool has been tested in three museums ( Don Quijote, Provincial Museum and Museo López Villaseñor ) and in the Tourism Office, and has provided interesting information regarding the visitors of Ciudad Real and their perception of the cultural offer of the city. The tool works in a similar way as a Tourism Observatory, but unlike the latter, mixes statistical results with qualitative analysis. Moreover, the tool developed by the UAM team is conceived as part of the whole process of management of cultural resources. It does not simply complement the management process and strategies, it is integrated into it. This is why the use of this instrument offers complementary information suitable to improve the cultural offer of the cities, and the one of Ciudad Real in this particular case. The detailed survey and conclusions of this tool can be found in the final report (D22: Cultural Offer Quality Monitoring Tools, available on However we would like to mention here the most remarkable outcomes in relation to the strategies and actions issued from the Plan de Dinamización and from the 400 th anniversary. The main conclusion is that, despite being one of the primary objectives, the city of Ciudad Real still lacks a real strategic plan, able to lead and integrate different actions and sectors (town planning, culture, education, etc.) of the municipality. The initiatives taken are more the product of ideas circumscribed to a specific situation, rather than the result of a global analysis of the dynamics of tourism. This can be seen, for instance, in the fact that specific elements of tourist offer, like the Quijote Museum, are not linked by common programmes of activities to other tourist and/or complementary offer. Another evidence of this is the lack of a multiple stakeholder defined strategy, which results in the lack of a rich and diversified offer. We also have detected among local agents the feeling that the promotion and coordination of the tourism offer is inadequate and entails a waste of resources and opportunities of attracting tourists. Concerning the objective of Develop among residents and local agents an interest and sensibility for Tourism Quality aspects, the results are ambiguous: on one hand, the idea of associating Ciudad

8 Real to the image of the Quijote is having success among the visitors, but on the other hand its extensive use is perceived as saturating by the residents, that feel that there are other elements of Ciudad Real that are worth being promoted. Furthermore, the emphasis on the Quijote character figure does not entails a specific attachment to the built heritage of the city. Beside the stress on the symbolic elements, as the Quijote character, it would also be convenient to offer activities related to this built heritage, in order to establish an active link with the population. Having said this, it goes without saying that our tool has also detected important positive results of the activities started by the municipality: the improvement of the infrastructures and the diversification of the offer, compared to the previous decade, is impressive, and is reflected in the increase of visitors in the last years. The main objective of the municipality is the structuring of this offer and the definition of a multi-stakeholder strategic plan to make the most of the rich tourism resources of the city and its province. 4. Concluding comments and Transferable key lessons The experience of Ciudad Real offers some interesting elements to take into consideration. The main keys are: Correct evaluation of the needs and handicaps of the city, in terms of tourism offer. Success in defining a development plan together with other municipalities, and obtaining the funds for its achievement (creation of a supramunicipal entity, networking and economy of scale) Creation of a city image (the Don Quijote character) that structurates and drives the actions of the municipality Integration of tourism development strategies and actions in the framework and budget of the celebrations for the 400 anniversary of the Don Quijote novel 5. References Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (2003) El turismo en España durante 2002 p.23. (

9 umentacion/fronturfamilitur/elturismoene spanadurante2002.pdf) Instituto Nacional de Estadística. Homepage: ( Interview with the Councillor of Tourism of Badajoz, Mr. Rafael Romero Cárdenas, recorded the 8/X/2004. Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio. Subdirección General de Calidad e Innovación Turística. Calidad Destinos. ( addestinos/calidaddestinos.asp?menu=des tinos&scroll=cdestinos&vis=uno) Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio. Subdirección General de Calidad e Innovación Turística. Planes de Excelencia. ( addestinos/planesexcelencia.asp) Municipality of Ciudad Real. Homepage: ( Plan de Dinamización de Tierra de Caballeros - Tablas de Daimiel. Home-page: ( a.php)