Agenda XXI LLORET DE MAR (GB) - Ajuntament de Lloret de Mar

• Sustainability also means, among many other things, adapting the use of available resources to
their rational carrying capacity. Sustainability is therefore not only an abstract, easy-to-assume
concept (nobody is conceptually "against" the environment), but also a series of scientifically
measurable parameters. We can cite for example the tourist formulas developed by Machado
(1990) and by Mayol i Machado (1992), which show that there are tourist areas which have
already exceeded their carrying capacity. We need to get used to reflecting, discussing and
operating with this set of parameters. Everything is environment to some extent: an economy is
only sustainable in a framework of environmental sustainability, of balance between resources
and their use without depleting or deteriorating them; a society (a culture, a way of life) is only
sustainable in a framework of balance between an ineluctable globalisation and a singular
cultural, identitary and anthropological milieu.
• The competitiveness of tourist-oriented offerings depends – and increasingly so in the future – in
the value-added they are capable of incorporating in the product in terms of environmental quality
and singular, physical and anthropological attributes of the territory where hey occur. Big tour
operators know this very well, and they are already adapting their strategies in this direction. The
level of demand of tour operators in this sense, and of the users themselves, will continue to grow
in coming years. Products that do not meet these requirements will lose ground and will be
cornered into marginal market segments. In other words, today, and more so in the future, the
best and most effective tourist promotion will be to highlight these aspects.
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS IN HOLIDAY DESTINATION DECISIONS.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS PERCENT
Beauty of landscape/scenery 51.2
Natural values 23.0
Water quality 27.2
Air quality 22.3
Local traditions 16.3
Local architecture 13.1
None/ don't know 23.1
SOURCE: General Secretariat for Tourism, Spaniards' Vacations in 1992.
• A local sustainability project is, above all, a necessarily participative project. Sustainability
can only be achieved through the involvement of a lot of people, not only, nor primarily, through
measures and proposals. It is above all a pedagogic process, a process of creating opinion, of
cultural change. Modern environmentalism has initiated experiences in new forms of participation,
not based on the populism of assembly-type formulas but on methodological rigour, the creation of
work spaces and areas for many people, with the belief that proposals will prosper above all
because of their validity.
These are the basic criteria which have prompted us to promote the Lloret de Mar Agenda XXI,
which modestly intends to become a solid project of local sustainability. This document intends –
with modesty yet at the same time with firmness and conviction – to become an initial tool, a
simple starting point, an invitation to all to participate in this local sustainability project.
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