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The socialists consider that there is a total lack of promotion of the city's tourist resources abroad, including the whole of the Jewish Castle and especially the Synagogue, despite its exceptional relevance.

They ask that they open new niches before an exhausted tourist product, and that tourism becomes a pillar of our economic and social development and facilitates the restoration of our Historic Quarter.

The councilor of the Municipal Socialist Group in the City of Lorca, David Romera, said that it is necessary "that the tourist relaunching of the city takes place" with a greater external projection and that it becomes one of the main tourist destinations of the Region of Murcia and the Southeast of Spain, assuring that "we have more than enough resources".

Affirms that tourism "has to become a basic pillar for our economic and social development", taking into account that in Spain cultural tourism is in full expansion phase and this summer has increased by 23% over last year, becoming a growing gap on sun and beach tourism.

Romera has indicated that "Lorca has to consolidate as a tourist city" to diversify the economic structure of the municipality and boost the commercial sector and the rehabilitation of our Historic Center.

"This has to involve a tourism promotion plan abroad that takes the Lorca brand to tourists and potential visitors, enrich with new content our tourism offer and boost a cultural offer that has been declining year after year with the governments of the PP", underlines

He added that Lorca "is lagging behind in the regional landscape compared to other nearby tourist destinations" as is the case of Cartagena (Cartagena, Port of Cultures), which closed 2017 with 476,000 visitors compared to the 81,000 that Lorca registered (Lorca, Taller del Tiempo), that is, the port city registers six times more visitors than Lorca despite enjoying a strategic position in the Mediterranean corridor.

For its part, Caravaca de la Cruz in its Holy Year 2017 added more than 500,000 visitors, a figure similar to that recorded by the city of Murcia.

Figures that multiply in the case of historic cities with great tourist tradition such as Toledo, Granada, Salamanca or Cuenca.

In addition, continues Romera, the official data of the CARM in relation to urban tourism in the Region of Murcia between November 2016 and October 2017, in whose report speaks of "the best records" in terms of number of travelers (amounting to 659,000) and overnight stays (totaling 1.14 million).

Of the three large cities, Lorca only accounts for 10% of the total in both concepts, being the only one that falls (-0.3% in the case of travelers and -2.6% in the case of overnight stays), while Murcia and Cartagena indicate promotions between +5 and + 10%.

In the same way, the number of visitors that Lorca has had, Taller del Tiempo in the last decade has hardly increased, going from 77,994 in 2009 to 81,000 in 2017, which "evidences a clear situation of stagnation" of a tourist product that "In addition to exhausted, it is not renewed or advertised abroad despite our proximity to the sea and strategic situation," recalling that the initial forecast was to reach 140,000 visitors once the project was consolidated.

Therefore, from the PSOE, Romera asks the PP government team to "bet definitely promote and develop the tourism sector in Lorca with adequate external promotion to be consolidated as a regional and national tourism power given the great resources it has the city and its municipality "and end the situation of current stagnation, and believes that tourism could allow the" economic diversification of the municipality, the growth of the commercial, hotel and restaurant sector, as well as enhance the recovery of our Historic Center, how much needed is investment of a public and above all private nature ".

To end the socialist mayor asks to start a work table to mark the "road map" to follow, in collaboration with all stakeholders involved, to make Lorca an attractive, dynamic and quality tourist destination that "helps to transform the life of the city and become an economic engine that generates employment and wealth "as it happens in other Spanish localities.

Source: PSOE Lorca