“We have been working for months on a project that we consider vital for the tourist development of our town. After achieving Festival of Tourist Interest status in Galicia, we want to make a quantitative leap at the national level with our Mussel and Cockle Festival.” This is how the mayor of Vilanova de Arousa, Gonzalo Durán, announced the importance of the work that is being carried out by the local government in favour of the event being declared to be of national interest.
One of the next steps required to submit the application for Festival of National Tourist Interest (FITN) status is the approval in the municipal plenary session that will take place on Monday, November 25, of a motion in support of the event’s candidacy. A motion that he hopes will have the unanimous support of Vilanova Town Council.
The councillor explained that, to reach this point, “numerous processes had to be completed,” which are mandatory for those events that opt to be declared FITN by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. Among them, Gonzalo Durán highlighted the renewal of the event’s corporate image, the dissemination of content about the event in different national media outlets or the event’s presence in the digital environment with its own spaces. In the latter case, the mayor indicated the importance of the creation and management of the Mussel and Cockle Festival’s profiles on two of the main social networks (Facebook and Instagram), as well as the implementation of a corporate website, featuring detailed information about the event, available in 3 languages and in compliance with AA accessibility requirements of the UNE 139803:2012 standard.
In addition, there is all the documentation that has to be compiled, justified and specified in the technical report that must accompany the application. “Once the motion is approved by the Plenary Session, we will enter the final phase of the project,” says Durán. This involves sending the application to the Galician Tourism Agency for evaluation and issuance of a favourable report regarding FITN status and, finally, proceeding to formalise the application with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism.