( 5.1 )

Sustainable Tourism Strategy of the City of València

València is one of the leading tourist destinations both nationally and internationally, with immense potential for growth. In 2023, the city of València recorded a higher number of overnight stays than the pre-pandemic figures, making it the second most-visited city in Spain, with an occupancy rate of 78.3%. Furthermore, València was designated the World Capital of Design in 2022 and the European Capital of Smart Tourism, is the European Green Capital for 2024, and has once again been named by InterNations as the best city in the world to live in, as well as being highlighted by various international media as a must-visit destination.

This growth and its prospects present a challenge that the City Council is tackling with thoroughness, placing sustainability at the heart of its tourism policy. València's new tourism policy is built on four main pillars: sustainable tourism, innovation, efficient management, and participatory governance. The aim is to develop a strategy that promotes sustainable and sustained growth, supports the sector’s profitability, offers new opportunities, maintains the lifestyle of the city’s residents, and ensures the conservation, recovery, and promotion of heritage.

The tragic DANA of 29 October 2024 has made visible, in the worst possible way, how climate change and extreme events can have an enormously negative impact on the city, its inhabitants and its visitors. Therefore, a sustainable tourism strategy must be conceived from the perspective of climate change mitigation, but also from the perspective of protecting the people who live in and visit the city.

In this sense, sustainable tourism is viewed in its threefold dimension —environmental, social, and economic— and is applied transversally across all municipal management areas, involving all stakeholders in the tourism ecosystem. The destination’s sustainability strategy focuses on managing and addressing the impacts of tourism activity in the city. The planning and management of tourism goes beyond the visitor and includes the local resident. The goal is not just to mitigate the environmental impact, but to generate positive impacts that improve the quality of life for residents.

The trajectory of sustainability as a core element of our tourism strategy is defined by a key milestone: the Tourism Sustainability Plan (pstd), a framework designed to guide and boost the destination’s sustainability, innovation, value creation, and intelligence in line with global environmental, economic, and social standards, as well as the latest advancements in digitalisation and tourism governance. The pstd aims to consolidate València as a Smart Tourist Destination, grounded on improving the well-being of residents, reducing carbon footprints, combating climate change, fostering digital transformation, creating value, and improving governance.

Key initiatives within the pstd include:

Creation of a Tourism Sustainability Observatory.
Establishing climate comfort spaces in sports facilities.
Promoting sustainable tourist mobility at the Congress Centre, including electric vehicle charging infrastructure and bike-sharing facilities.
Development of a digital twin for the Congress Centre.
Digitisation of cultural heritage interpretation.
Implementation of an accessible signage system.
A communication and awareness campaign for both tourists and residents.

Additionally, in close collaboration with national and regional administrations, the DTI model (Smart Tourism Destination) is being implemented as a compass for the city's digital transformation.

We are currently in a phase of strategic reflection, where we aim to define the roadmap for the coming years to position ourselves as a leader in sustainable and intelligent tourism. The key lies in defining the new model that will determine the future volume of tourism in the city. To this end, València is embarking on the reformulation process with the Strategic Tourism Plan 2024-2028. This plan will define the tourism policy for the upcoming years, focusing on a model of sustained growth that guarantees sector profitability, preserves the lifestyle of residents, and ensures the conservation of the city's resources.

Another noteworthy project is Zentropy MICE, which aims to address the sustainability and impact of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) sector in València. Adopting an “urban entropy” approach, the project seeks to maximise the positive externalities of this type of tourism and improve the legacy that the MICE sector leaves for the city.

The València Congress Centre will become the experimental field for testing this approach and measuring the entropy associated with MICE tourism, conceptualising the centre as an open system subject to interactions and flows with the city of València.

The aim is for the Zentropy MICE project to become a flagship and driving initiative at the European level, capable of improving urban sustainability and contributing to the green transition of cities and tourism.

The Zentropy MICE project foresees the tendering of 7 investments:

Park-and-ride facility to encourage the use of public transport.
Energy efficiency interventions at the Congress Centre.
Micro-wind turbines for renewable energy production.
Composting facilities for food waste management.
Green infrastructure at the Congress Centre.
Digital screens to reduce the use of materials.
‘Dissipative’ structure to promote and expand knowledge of MICE events among the population.

Why is it an emblematic project?

The importance of sustainability as an axis of the tourism strategy is instrumentalised in two of our flagship projects: The Tourism Sustainability Plan (PSTD) and the Zentropy-MICE project.

The PSTD will consolidate València as a Smart and Sustainable Tourism Destination through the implementation of actions around 4 main axes: green and sustainable transition, energy efficiency, digital transition, and competitiveness. It pivots around two strategic lines that will position València as a venue for sustainable and intelligent congresses and the promotion of sports tourism as a destination of reference in the practice of outdoor activities and sustainable sporting events.

In addition, the plan has the transversal objective of influencing social sustainability where, in addition to tourists, residents are also beneficiaries of most of the actions, as well as creating and promoting new tourism products that contribute to diversification, depersonalisation and decongestion of tourist areas.

Areas and other stakeholders involved

València City Council: Delegation of Tourism and Delegation of Innovation, Technology, Digital Agenda and Investment Attraction
Entities: Palacio de Congresos, València Innovation Capital, Fundació Visit València
Universities: Universitat Politècnica de València and Universitat de València-Estudi General
Civil Sector: Consell Municipal de Turisme
Agents involved and support: SEGITTUR, Turespaña, Turisme CV, Diputació de València

Budget

Total budget PSTD: 7.500.000,00 €
Total budget Zentropy MICE: 5.252.306 € Co-financing 80% ERDF: 4.201.844,80 €
Total budget: FU-TOURISM: 4.182.065,13 €

Lessons learned and recommendations

Be clear about the definition of the tourism development model and the determination of the volume of tourism dimensioning of the city.
Importance of determining the carrying capacity of the destination and the tourist saturation indexes.
Design of action programmes considering a balance between tourist activity and the lifestyle of residents.
Importance of the measurement of impacts derived from the implementation of the actions: before and after the execution of the action and its correlation with the measurement of the quality-of-life indices of the residents.
Importance of the management of tourist flows for the maintenance of tourist sustainability in terms of saturation.
Having a diverse and multidisciplinary team and partnership, with experience in different fields and capable of covering the different dimensions: academia, public administration, and private sector, with a strong social base.
Assumption of risk and importance of the balance between an innovative idea, never tested, and a solid proposal.
The green transition of the tourism sector has to come from a transversal approach and through diverse interventions.
The transferability of projects to other environments must go through feedback processes of the original idea.
Sustainable tourism must include not only the reduction of the impact caused by tourism activity, but also the protection of visitors from weather events.

Impact KPI'S

Calculation of the carbon footprint generated by events
Measurement of tourist flows
Tourism intelligence: actions aimed at advancing as DTI (Governance, Digitalisation, Accessibility, Sustainability)
Jobs generated by the implementation of the projects

Zentropy MICE project timeline

2022 World Capital of Smart Tourism
2022 Resolution Concession of the Tourism Sustainability Plan
2024 València is selected as EUI winning city
2024 Start of the Strategic Tourism Plan 24-28
2024 50% Execution of the funds of the Tourism Sustainability Plan in Destination
2024 Launch and start of the implementation of the Zentropy project
2026 Completion of the Tourism Sustainability Plan in Destination
2028 End of the project

Links with more information

( 5.2 )European Green Capital 2023

Tallinn (EST)

“The title of European Green Capital for the year 2023 provided significant impetus for the city to accelerate the green transition and apply sustainability principles more extensively. The title year had a clear impact on increasing awareness within the city organisation and fostered the understanding that all daily activities and the provision of city services are linked to the green transition, and sustainability goals must be considered every day.”

Mayor Mr. Jevgeni Ossinovski

Test in Tallinn

Test in Tallinn is one of our innovation programmes initiated by the European Green Capital year 2023, aimed at transforming our city into a living laboratory for sustainable urban solutions. By partnering with technology companies, research institutions, and startups, we provide a real-world environment to test and implement technologies in mobility, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

During the programme we have received 61 applications, approved 28 test projects, and had partners from 18 different countries around the world. We have worked out evaluation criteria, how testing projects contribute to city needs and understand the risks associated to implementations.

This initiative does not only help us achieve our climate goals but also positions Tallinn as a leader in smart city solutions. For instance, we are currently testing satellite data that monitors air quality and emissions, advanced energy management systems for buildings, and various renewable energy projects that could be scaled up to benefit the entire city.

Lessons learned and recommendations

Helping companies to test requires creative approaches to involve and commit different level city departments. It helps to grow the city’s competence in evaluating innovation and see different possibilities to develop services in greener and cost-effective ways.
We recommend signing contracts with innovation project parties and taking commitment to scale proven solutions.
Testing gives the city free technology and enhanced cooperation with start-ups, universities, science parks and other cities.

Budget

It has been a very cost-effective project. The city is covering the salary of the innovation expert responsible for the project. Also, the expenses of promotional activities up to €7,000 per year are included in the city budget.

Links with more information

( 5.3 ) How do other cities address this?

⋆ Reference projects

Treviso (ITA) ⋆

Microtunneling to expand the sewage system and reduce waste, microtunnels are being constructed under the river and the city center to connect a larger number of citizens to the sewage treatment plants.

External link

Winterswijk (NLD) ⋆

The biggest solar field of our province. It will be combined with energy storage in a few years.

External link

Elsinore (DNK) ⋆

New method for tendering construction works. We get as high a degree of sustainability as possible, and the lowest CO2 footprint in the finished construction. The tender is issued in a turnkey contract with a fixed price (a building program and a targeted sketch proposal for design and layout).

Viladecans (ESP) ⋆

Co-Carbon. Citizen science project to quantify CO2 captured by urban trees. 700 students measured the data needed to account CO2 in 1300 trees (which allowed us to extrapolate it to the total urban tree cover) to know how far the city is from CO2 neutrality.

External link

Mollet del Vallès (ESP) ⋆

Molletlab, experimentation and innovation social center. The project has been implemented to promote social innovation through the living lab and bring the technology and the culture of prototyping closer to stakeholders through the maker space to achieve social and territorial transformation.

Nyborg (DNK) ⋆

Nyborg Municipality has adopted a climate action plan based on C40 standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and net zero emissions by 2050. The plan includes various climate adaptation measures.

Lappeenranta (FIN) ⋆

Power-2-X development with companies, municipalities and universities. A hydrogen economy model that would also decrease GHG emissions in the city.

Liepāja (LVA) ⋆

Liepāja has implemented Latvia's first smart traffic light system at the Uliha and Robežu streets intersection. With machine vision technology, it detects red light violations.

External link

Turin (ITA) ⋆

Cte Next is Turin’s hub for emerging technologies, focusing on 5G, IoT, AI, and Blockchain. It provides 5G infrastructure, free consultancy, testing support, and training. In three years, it has raised €7M from startups, creating an innovative ecosystem for smart mobility and smart cities.

Guimarães (PRT) ⋆

The Landscape Lab stands out as a leader in environmental research and education, tackling major challenges like sustainability and climate. By integrating scientific research with active community involvement, it creates innovative solutions for a greener, more resilient future.

External link