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14 hotels and 6 restaurants in Lloret de Mar receive the Little Foodies accreditation, a seal of quality created by Lloret Turisme and the Alícia Foundation for good, healthy and sustainable children’s restaurants.

Today, at the Velamar restaurant in Lloret de Mar, Lloret Turisme and the Alícia Foundation awarded the seal for good, healthy and sustainable children’s restaurants to a total of 20 establishments, 14 hotels and 6 restaurants. This certification certifies that the establishments that have passed the audit guarantee a balanced diet for children during their holiday stay. The manager of Lloret Turisme, Elizabeth Keegan, explains that “traditionally, children’s food during the holiday period has been linked to unhealthy and repetitive menus, but nowadays families are also demanding that healthy food can be guaranteed for their children during their holidays”.

Before starting the project, a survey was carried out among catering establishments. The main data highlighted that 33% are already accredited with the Family Tourist Destination certification awarded by the Government of Catalonia; 97.4% are family-friendly and 56% offer a buffet or children’s menu (of which half of them have a differentiated space for children with little variety on offer). Ninety per cent of respondents also reported that they had not received any training in children’s food and, in conclusion, 95% said that they felt they could improve their children’s offer and were willing to do so.

The audit, which is based on the plate method, establishes that children’s menus should contain 50% vegetables, 25% carbohydrates and 25% protein foods. It was carried out by professionals from the Alícia Foundation, who assessed different criteria according to the following blocks:

  • Safe: compliant with regulations and adapted to allergies and/or intolerances and safely presented (the more separated, cut and peeled the better).
  • Sufficient: rations should be adjusted to children.
  • Balanced: ensuring the presence of vegetables, wholemeal foods and the use of olive oil, among others.
  • Ecological: that strives for the presence of fresh, seasonal and local food, as well as having a recycling and waste separation system, among others.
  • Economic: the price should be adapted to the quantities served to children and water should be offered as the first choice.
  • Practical: to provide a service that promotes the autonomy of the child.
  • Ethics: that the child is considered as an equal partner and that the basic rights of families are guaranteed.
  • Significant: ensuring the presence of dishes from the territory.
  • Stimulating: offering attractive dishes and encouraging gastronomic discovery.

 

The Mayor of Lloret, Jaume Dulsat, and the Councillor for Bars, Restaurants and Cafeterias, Lara Torres, presented the certification to the following accredited establishments: Costa Encantada aparthotel, Evenia Olympic Garden hotel, Evenia Olympic Palace hotel, Evenia Olympic Park hotel, Evenia Olympic Suites hotel, Guitart Central Park Aqua Resort, Acapulco hotel, Anabel hotel, Marsol hotel, Rosamar Garden hotel, Rosamar Marítim hotel, Samba hotel, Surf Mar hotel, Xaine Park hotel, and the restaurants Can Bolet, Can Guidet, El Trull , Mas Romeu, La Rambla and Velamar.

Apart from awarding the diplomas to the establishments, the Little Foodies brand was also presented during the presentation, which gives visibility to all this commitment to healthy children’s food and which includes a new graphic image, the seal, different physical and digital supports, a landing page (littlefoodies.lloretdemar.org) in four different languages, several promotional videos and a specific image bank.

The Mayor of Lloret, Jaume Dulsat, explained that “this accreditation combines our commitment to gastronomy and family tourism, which is a product that has become firmly established in Lloret over the last few years”. He added that “the success of these projects depends on this public-private partnership”.

In 2018, Lloret Turisme launched the Strategy to boost the gastronomy sector in Lloret de Mar 2018-2022 in collaboration with the Alícia Foundation and with the support of the Lloret de Mar Bars, Restaurants and Cafeterias Guild and the Lloret de Mar Hotel Guild. During this time it has carried out different actions in the two strategic lines of the project. In the health area, all kinds of training courses have been organised for kitchen teams (allergies and intolerances, veganism and vegetarianism) and the destination currently has more than 15 gluten-free establishments accredited by the Coeliac Association of Catalonia and 21 with the AMED seal of the Public Health Agency of Catalonia, in the promotion of Mediterranean food. In terms of identity, the Americanos Cuisine recipe booklet was created.

Lloret Turisme unveils the Greentour project to the destination’s private sector

Lloret Turisme held a one-day conference yesterday at the Marsol Hotel in order to unveil the European Greentour project to the destination’s private sector. This EU-funded initiative, with a budget of €1,172,000, is aimed at improving the sustainable development of destinations.

The event was attended by around 20 representatives of companies from the accommodation sector (Hotel Acapulco, Grup Frigola, Evenia Hotels, Hotel Xaine, Albamar i Almirall, Marsol Hotels and Samba Hotels), the restaurant sector (El Trull, Law Holding and Punta Garbí) and the leisure activity sector (Law Holding and Oh!lé Group), along with members of the Hotel and Restaurant Guild of Lloret de Mar and of the Southern Costa Brava Quality Plan initiative.

The presentation showed those present how they could sign up to a project that provides free tools for calculating the environmental impact generated by their establishments, with a view to achieving greater environmental, social and economic sustainability. The project therefore adopts a comprehensive, medium-term approach.

Elizabeth Keegan, Manager of Lloret Turisme, the destination’s tourism promotion body, explained that “This is a fantastic opportunity for our establishments. Our colleagues at the UNESCO chair, who are coordinating the project, have explained that the results obtained through this tool are overwhelmingly positive and that it would be extremely expensive to carry out this process on an individual basis. Given that Lloret de Mar is a partner of the project, our establishments are entitled to take part in the initiative. Moreover, they’ll be able to compare themselves with other companies in the same sector in order to discover the environmental impact of their facilities.” In addition to the Lloret-based companies already involved in the project (Samba Hotels, Hotel Acapulco), a further group of Greentour project members (Marsol Hotels, El Trull restaurant and Pitch & Putt Golf Lloret) have taken part in the pre-pilot phase. Lloret Turisme and Lloret Town Council are also participating through public facilities of the destination, such as Santa Clotilde Gardens, in order to improve the management of the town’s natural and cultural heritage.

The Greentour project aims to create alliances between tourist destinations (including UNESCO-listed heritage sites) in Spain, France, Andorra and Portugal, and between technical partners with a proven track record in the study, development and implementation of environmentally efficient systems. The goal is to work towards achieving a new environmental, economic and social model that both informs the consumer and obtains their commitment to the area in which they are carrying out their tourism activity. In addition to Lloret de Mar (Catalonia), other pilot destinations are taking part in the project, such as Ordino (Andorra), Massif du Sancy (Auvergne), Camino Lebaniego (Cantabria), Rias Baixas (Pontevedra, Galicia) and Guimarães (Portugal), all of which boast impressive natural and cultural heritage. The destinations will serve as ambassadors of the ecolabel in the SUDOE area. The project is scheduled to last 28 months and has been allocated a budget of 1,172,000 euros.

Jaume Dulsat, the Mayor of Lloret, stated that “This positioning of the destination in the area of sustainability represents an opportunity for everyone, including for companies, in order for them to know where they stand in terms of sustainability and on this basis engage in the issue and begin to act accordingly.”

Lloret de Mar Town Council publishes the terms and conditions of the ideas competition for the selection of proposals of the Future Master Plan for the remodelling of the main urban axis of the town

Lloret de Mar Town Council has published the terms and conditions of the ideas competition for the selection of proposals of the Future Master Plan for the remodelling of the urban axis that includes Avinguda del Rieral, Avinguda de Just Marlès, the seafront promenade and Avinguda de Pau Casals (the main thoroughfare of the town). The goal is to decide on the proposal that best serves as an urban panning framework or scheme. A study will be conducted to evaluate the viability of the proposal.

The ideas competition will be assigned a specialised jury made up of a team of professionals from different disciplines: a leading architect in the field of urban planning, designated by the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC); a prestigious Road, Canal and Port Engineer designated by the Engineers’ Association of Catalonia; an environmentalist specialised in urban and territorial planning, designated by the Environmentalists’ Association of Catalonia; an economist specialised in urban economics; a member designated by the Spanish Association of Urban Planning Technicians; the municipal architect and engineer; the Director General for Tourism of Catalonia; the President of the Tourism Business Table of Lloret de Mar; the secretary; and the Mayor of Lloret de Mar, who will preside over the jury.

The ideas competition consists of two phases: the selection phase and the awarding phase. In the selection phase, proposals may be submitted by any bidder who fulfils the clauses listed in the terms and conditions. The ten bidders who pass the selection phase will be invited to take part in the awarding phase. The interested parties will have 15 calendar days to submit a proposal in the selection phase, starting from the date of the publication of the corresponding announcement in the contracting profile.

The awarding phase consists of two sub-phases: a preliminary phase in which the ten previously selected proposals will participate, presenting their respective proposals (on eight sheets of DIN A3 paper at the most) within 45 calendar days, and a second phase in which the three finalists will participate, developing the project of their respective ideas within 75 days starting from the date of publication of the corresponding announcement in the contracting profile.

The total award budget amounts to €80,000, not including VAT, which will be distributed as follows: a first prize of €15,000, along with €5,000 for each of the project’s four areas (€35,000 in total). The remaining €45,000 will be split equally between the three finalists (€15,000 each).

According to the Mayor of Lloret de Mar, Jaume Dulsat, “This is an iconic spot of Lloret de Mar and an important tourist attraction. As such, we’re looking for a project that conveys the image and urban quality that this spot deserves in order for residents and visitors alike to be able to enjoy it even more.”

The renewal of this urban axis is one of the projects included in the 2015-2020 Operational Plan for the Renewal of the Lloret de Mar Tourist Destination, implemented by Lloret de Mar Town Council, the Government of Catalonia and the Tourism Business Table of Lloret de Mar. In 2016, Lloret de Mar Town Council organised an international urban planning seminar entitled “Rethink Lloret”, which was attended by several international experts in urban planning and architecture who belong to the Habitat Professionals Forum (HPF) (associated with the United Nations), and five students of the sector. In its recommendations, the seminar highlighted the potential of Lloret de Mar and concluded that the main thoroughfare that crosses the town should be given the form of a rambla or promenade, fostering pedestrian and cycle traffic. It also recommended the creation of a large avenue connecting the new commercial areas to the entrance to the town. The experts emphasised the need to create an outstanding urban site, improving its model of use for residents and visitors, and incorporating leisure and relaxation zones with shady trees. They also highlighted the need to integrate the remodelled area within the townscape and to consider the large number of visitors who flock to Lloret during much of the year. It is therefore necessary to adopt criteria that take into account durability, energy-saving measures and maintenance.

The participants in this ideas competition will be provided with the following documentation in order to submit their proposals: the aforementioned set of conclusions, the Operational Plan for the Renewal of the Lloret de Mar Tourist Destination, the project for the remodelling and improvement of Plaça de Pere Torrent, the Ciutat de la Llum (City of Light) project, and the project for restoring the seafront of Lloret de Mar.

LLORET DE MAR KICKS OFF THE 2018 SUMMER SEASON WITH NEW DEVELOPMENTS RELATED TO BIG DATA, PUBLIC BEHAVIOUR AND SAFETY

With almost 1.1 million visitors per year, generating 5.3 million overnight stays, Lloret de Mar is the third-ranked municipality in Catalonia in terms of tourist numbers. This summer’s key developments include the destination’s smart city strategy, aimed at enhancing visitors’ tourism experience, and its safety and public behaviour efforts, devised to ensure greater harmony between local residents and tourists.

The Mayor of Lloret de Mar, Jaume Dulsat, says its business as usual this season: “We’ve done our homework to repeat last year’s figures. The initiatives we’re presenting today are geared towards increasing visitor satisfaction and strengthening our teams in security and public behaviour matters.”

Big data projects

One of the key developments this summer is the implementation of a smart tourism programme, which analyses the behaviour and satisfaction of tourists in the destination and their participation in social networks.

The chosen tool for this programme is the smart platform developed by Mabrian exclusively for the tourism sector, simultaneously combining different information sources to apply artificial intelligence to tourist data, carrying out a multi-variable analysis by means of algorithms that incorporate Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning techniques that turn the gathered data into useful knowledge for decision making. The tool compiles online behaviour patterns such as searches, social network content and evaluations, creating a huge database which in combination with the knowledge of destination managers is turned into tourism intelligence.

Staying with the smart destination theme, the roll-out of Lloret’s free Wi-Fi service has continued this year and now includes Fenals Beach, where seven access points have been installed, in addition to the 11 points already in place on Lloret Beach since last summer. Over the last few months, the number of users of the Wi-Fi network has steadily risen, reaching 44,791 unique users in June with an average of 4,109 users per day. Total data consumption for June was 10 TB.

Blue Flag Seal. Lloret de Mar has once again been awarded the annual Blue Flag seal for all its beaches: Lloret, Fenals, Santa Cristina, Sa Boadella and Canyelles. Lloret de Mar, Ametlla de Mar and Barcelona are the three municipalities in Catalonia with the largest number of blue flag beaches. The seal is awarded by an international jury of the Foundation for Environmental Education, in conjunction with the Environmental Education and Consumer Association (the foundation’s Spanish partner). The Blue Flag is a world-renowned seal.

Gastronomy. A new project has been brought to life thanks to an agreement between Lloret Turisme, The Lloret Bars and Restaurant Association and the Lloret de Mar Hotel and Restaurant Guild, in partnership with the Alícia Foundation. Its goal is to make Lloret a high quality gastronomic destination with its own special character. The first phase, which has just begun, focuses on Healthy Cuisine and encourages establishments to sign up to the AMED* Mediterranean diet programme. So far, around 20 establishments have requested the AMED seal. Once the summer season has ended, plans are in place to offer training programmes on food allergy/intolerance management and on vegetarian eating.

Civic behaviour initiatives

This year’s civic behaviour campaign focuses on noise pollution and aims to raise visitors’ awareness of the need to respect the peace and quiet of local residents and pedestrians, especially on Avinguda Just Marlés and the surrounding streets, where most of Lloret’s nightlife establishments are concentrated. As such, a fun ear-shaped character has been designed to star in this campaign, grabbing people’s attention in the street with slogans in English (Enjoy the silence; Make peace not noise; Love your ears) that encourage them to make less noise in order to ensure good citizen coexistence, especially at night.

The street-based elements of the campaign (banners and advertising panels) are complemented with materials designed especially for participating establishments: display signs for dwellings for tourist use (DTUs) and hotels, open/closed signs for shops and coasters for bar and restaurant terraces.

This summer also sees the incorporation of a team of four civic agents deployed during the daytime in the beach area and four civic agents permanently deployed at night, entrusted with supervising, providing information and, where necessary, dissuading people from bad practices and breaches of municipal by-laws on civic behaviour. The team’s goal is to improve security and citizen coexistence, as well as to safeguard public areas. The agents work in partnership with the local police as a dissuasive and preventive measure.

Another new development is a pilot scheme on Avinguda Just Marlés involving the incorporation of daytime street terraces with the goal of creating a new recreational space.

New by-law on Dwellings for Tourist Use

This year, Lloret de Mar has been leading the way in Catalonia in respect of its policy on DTUs thanks to a new by-law that obliges the registered dwellings (of which there more than 2,900) to display a sign that indicates the maximum number of guests, the licence number and the contact details of the person responsible for the dwelling. A team of inspectors carries out compliance checks.

About Lloret de Mar

Lloret de Mar is one of Spain’s top five coastal destinations in terms of hotel bed places and is the only municipality on the Costa Brava with year-round occupancy. With almost 1.1 million visitors per year, generating 5.3 million overnight stays, Lloret de Mar is the third-ranked municipality in Catalonia in terms of tourist numbers. The city boasts 38,000 residents of more than 100 nationalities, who’ve made it a melting pot of world cultures.

(*) To obtain AMED certification it’s necessary to cook with olive oil, incorporate vegetable-based and wholemeal ingredients in the menu, and foster the responsible consumption of wine and other alcoholic beverages, among other requirements.
Short-term target: 50% of establishments (hotels and restaurants) with certification by the end of 2019. In the specific case of hotels, those which have expressed an interest in taking part in this programme account for 12,000 of Lloret’s 29,000 bed places.

Lloret puts its T-shirt on to strengthen relations between local residents and tourists

Lloret de Mar, 28 June 2017.– With respect, we all fit in Lloret, a new public behaviour campaign aimed at strengthening relations between local residents and tourists, was unveiled this lunchtime at Lloret de Mar’s Town Hall. The goal of the initiative, which is already being rolled out at various locations in the town, is to foster good relations in Lloret on the basis of a positive, relaxed approach that focuses on striking a balance between the needs of local residents and tourists by getting both groups to wear the same T-shirt.

According to the Mayor of Lloret de Mar, Jaume Dulsat, “What we’re seeing right now is that various cities are affected by the tourist phobia phenomenon. Tourism is the economic engine of Lloret de Mar and we’ve always been an open, welcoming town; we don’t want that to change, which is why we feel the need to implement initiatives such as this campaign, focusing on the shared responsibility of local residents and visitors and showing that, with respect, we all fit in our town.”

The need to carry out actions that strengthen relations between local residents and tourists was one of the points listed in the Lloret de Mar Strategic Tourism Plan 2010-2014 and also features in the Lloret de Mar Tourism Renewal Plan 2015-2020. Furthermore, one of the conclusions reached by the 2015 Rethink Lloret initiative, in which citizens were invited to attend workshops to analyse the tourism future of the town, was the need to promote a positive local attitude towards tourists and to carry out actions to promote good relations between the two groups.

Lloret, MAKE IT yours

For the last two years, Lloret Town Council has been implementing campaigns designed to improve how the destination is perceived and to break down stereotypes associated with the town, such as the “Come on. Experience it. Share Lloret” campaign in 2014 or the “Lloret, the way I like it” campaign in 2015. These campaigns were aimed at a Catalan audience with the goal of repositioning the brand. As Jaume Dulsat explains, “In recent years we’ve worked hard on communicating with potential visitors from the nearby market, which as we see it is where the stereotypes are most deeply ingrained. But we also realised that we needed to make an effort to communicate with visitors once they’re here.”

Lloret de Mar is now launching a medium-term initiative, scheduled to run for two years, which targets end users by repositioning the brand, highlighting the diversity of what the destination has to offer and fostering an enriching relationship between local residents and tourists. The Lloret, MAKE IT yours campaign is designed to create a sense of belonging, of feeling at home.

“With respect, we all fit in Lloret” summer public behaviour campaign

This public behaviour campaign is the first initiative to be launched under the Lloret, MAKE IT yours umbrella campaign.

“Respect” is the buzzword of a campaign aimed at making everyone feel at home in Lloret: early risers and night owls, music lovers and silence seekers. As the Mayor of Lloret points out, “Lloret is a destination with a long tourism tradition where people of more than 100 nationalities come together; it’s a town with plenty of resilience but we need to foster good relations and mutual respect.”

The campaign, in full force on the streets of Lloret de Mar from today, is directly related to the Enjoy & Respect campaign implemented in 2012 in the wake of the disturbances that occurred in August 2011. There are some differences between the two campaigns, however. Jaume Dulsat says that “this campaign is fresher and friendlier, seeking to engage both visitors and local residents by generating empathy and shared responsibility, steering clear of the issue of penalties.”

With this new initiative, Lloret de Mar aims to establish friendly relations with the people who visit the destination. It wants local residents to feel proud of their town and to overcome prejudices, enabling a feeling of belonging to come to the fore.

The goal of the campaign is for local residents and tourists alike to feel proud of Lloret, for everyone to enjoy the town in their own way but learning to share it on the basis of respect.

The campaign has a wide target audience, encompassing visitors who come to spend a few days in the town in high season and local residents, along with businesses and the main agents of the tourism sector, who can join the campaign.

Put your T-shirt on

The key element for the dissemination of the campaign is a T-shirt, which in this initiative serves as a vehicle to foster good relations and respect. The goal is to make local residents and tourists feel part of the same team by wearing the same T-shirt. The campaign is a fun and friendly way of focusing on the need for tourists to realise that they need to put their T-shirts on when they leave the beach, an issue that affects the town and is one of the main symbols of the negative perceptions surrounding tourism. The T-shirt is also one of the key elements for generating a sense of community.

Lloret de Mar Town Council has produced 10,000 T-shirts that display messages related to the campaign goal. The attractively designed, modern T-shirts display fun and friendly images with phrases in Catalan and English that play with opposites and with which both local residents and tourists can identify and make the campaign their own, whatever their profile: night versus day, silence versus music, nightlife versus daytime activities.

This is mainly a street-based campaign in order to achieve a real connection with local residents and visitors. In this respect, and in addition to publicising the initiative through various advertising displays (lamp post banners, totem stands…), the area where people need to put their T-shirts on has also been delimited from today. This street marketing action marks out a symbolic line with the words “Put your T-shirt on” at the edge of the seafront promenade and at the entrances to the shopping area as a fun and relaxed way of informing people of the zones in which they can walk around without a T-shirt and promoting its use.

An information point has also been set up featuring a giant T-shirt that displays the campaign messages. The goal is for local residents and visitors to take photos there and share them on social networks in exchange for a T-shirt, becoming ambassadors of the campaign.

Tourism in Lloret. The figures.

Last year, Lloret de Mar welcomed 1,288,098 visitors and registered a total of 5,884,557 overnight stays in hotels. The main nationalities of visitors to the destination are Spanish, French, British and German. It’s the 5th-ranked sun and sand destination in Spain in terms of hotel bed spaces. Furthermore, Lloret de Mar was the second-ranked destination in Catalonia in 2015 for tourist tax revenue with €2,639,688.12, only surpassed by the city of Barcelona.

Lloret de Mar has 120 hotel establishments with approximately 30,000 hotel bed spaces. 60% of the town’s hotel accommodation offering is concentrated in hotels with three stars or more, while 64% of the five-star and luxury hotel accommodation on the Costa Brava is located in Lloret de Mar.

In addition to hotel bed spaces, there are also four campsites in Lloret, de Mar with 1,337 camping pitches and 4,011 bed spaces; 12 holiday apartment blocks with 1,140 bed places; and 2,616 private dwellings registered for tourist use with an estimated total of 15,860 bed places.