Plans

Tourism Sustainability Plan: “Gijón/Xixón, identity, sustainability and digitalisation”

This Plan has represented a roadmap to guide the city’s tourism towards achieving the challenges set out under the pillars of sustainable tourism.

The Plan’s overall budget amounts to 3,997,925 euros, of which 30% is a municipal contribution based on the guidelines of the tourism sustainability plan of the Principality of Asturias. The remaining 70% is financed with Next Generation European funds, aimed specifically at Destination Tourism Sustainability Plans.

The specific objectives of the Gijón/Xixón plan have been to strengthen the Coastal Way of St James, promote sustainable mobility and the walkability of the destination, rehabilitate landscape elements in areas of tourist interest, improve the management and impact of tourism flows and their distribution, advance energy efficiency, innovate in the application of technology to tourism services and resources (tourist office, museums), and strengthen the culture-tourism pairing by recovering historical heritage as a tourism asset.

The plan is organised around four major axes that have become its main investments:

Axis 1. Green and sustainable transition

Aimed at adapting paths and infrastructure and restoring the landscape of spaces, works and facilities.

Action 1: Adaptation of the western exit of the Way of St James in Gijón/Xixón.
Action 2: Environmental restoration and adaptation of the seafront for tourist use.

Axis 2. Improvement of energy efficiency

It seeks to improve mobility and walkability in the destination and contribute to mitigating climate change.

Action 3: Smarter and more sustainable tourism mobility.
Action 4: Adaptation and improvement of the energy efficiency of the Pilgrims’ Hostel.

Axis 3. Digital transition

It seeks to improve processes through the use of technology.

Action 5: Programme to promote digitalisation in the tourism sector, equipping the destination with business intelligence tools and improving the management and competitiveness of the destination and its services.
Action 6: Creation of the Smart Tourist Office, leading a process of technological transformation in the tourist information service.
Action 7: Application of digital technologies for the tourism use of the city’s historical heritage, promoting the digitalisation of several museums with innovative solutions.

Axis 4. Competitiveness

It includes actions to create and strengthen new facilities in the destination and actions linked to the constant improvement of destination management.

Action 8: Recovery and adaptation for tourist use of the air-raid shelters in the old town as historical heritage of value.
Action 9: Management, monitoring and evaluation of the Plan, to provide the destination with the resources needed for the execution and coordination of the Plan.

Gijón Futuro Agreement 2024 – 2027

The representatives of Gijón/Xixón City Council and the social agents, the Asturian Federation of Entrepreneurs and the regional branches of Comisiones Obreras and the General Workers’ Union, worked side by side for months on the preparation of this Gijón Futuro pact, an agreement for quality employment, sustainable business and innovation 2024-2027.

This new social concertation pact, “Gijón Futuro”, aims to be one of the paths through which our municipality moves towards a future full of challenges, but above all of opportunities and possibilities to build a more prosperous, more innovative, more sustainable and fairer Gijón/Xixón.

With this premise, the Agreement is structured into five blocks in which Tourism forms the third axis, designed at an ideal time to lay the foundations for a new tourism model that pursues, on the one hand, the reduction of seasonality and, on the other, the consolidation of Gijón/Xixón as a quality and sustainable destination. Work is also being carried out on strategies to strengthen our municipality’s presence in international markets, as well as to attract congresses, conventions and meetings.