With the presence of Mayor Francisco Azcué and broad participation from actors in the public, private, academic, and civil society sectors, the launch event and the first workshop of the Concordia 2025-2030 Sustainable Tourism Strategic Plan (PETS) were held.
The day, organized by the Undersecretariat of Tourism under the Secretariat of Productive Development and the Mixed Tourism Entity of Concordia (EMCONTUR), had the academic support of the Faculty of Administration Sciences of the National University of Entre Ríos (UNER), which will allow for an objective and comprehensive vision of the destination.
Addressing those present, Mayor Azcué highlighted that the implementation of the Sustainable Tourism Strategic Plan is historic because it is integrated “by this virtuous circle that we seek so much, which has to do with the State, the private sector, and also the academic sector,” recalling that when the government plan to be executed during the administration was made known to the community, “we said that we were going to design public policies and make decisions, working and listening to intermediate institutions, and that is what we are doing.”
This allows each idea “to be nourished by the input of other perspectives, because it is not a good idea to govern with one's back to society and institutions. The cities we take as a model, because they have moved forward, implemented this method, and as citizens, it is in our best interest to do it this way because what we do will transcend us. We must think about long-term public policies.”
Vice Mayor Magdalena Reta de Urquiza stated that “we have the conditions to generate development in our city and also in the region, hence the importance of this plan to be able to think about how tourism can grow and be an opportunity for many.”
For his part, the Undersecretary of Tourism, Laureano Schvartzman, highlighted that “it is a historic day, because we are daring to dream of the city we want from a tourism perspective; we know that tourism can be an excellent means for the general development of communities, and daring to take this step is thanks to the work and commitment of a lot of actors from the private and public sectors.” That is to say, “tourism has ceased to be just a transaction of services or landscapes: today it is a concrete tool for local, sustainable, responsible, and inclusive development,” he remarked.
STRATEGIC PLAN AND FIRST WORKSHOP
This space marks the beginning of a new stage in the city's tourism planning, based on the Smart Tourist Destinations (DTI) approach. The plan is structured around five fundamental axes defined by the model promoted by SEGITTUR (Spain) and adapted in Argentina through the IRAM 42101:2022 Standard: Governance, Innovation, Technology, Sustainability, and Accessibility.
This support guarantees a strategic and sustainable approach, key to achieving the tourism positioning that Concordia desires and can reach. In this process, the importance of a truly participatory construction by the actors of the local community is highlighted.
During the workshop, a territorial self-diagnosis tool was applied, which allows for the assessment of institutional capacities, baseline conditions, and levels of articulation of the tourism ecosystem. This first instance is part of the participatory process that was developed through thematic tables focused on the five DTI axes, with the aim of building a shared vision for the development of the Concordia destination.
Furthermore, it was confirmed that a second instance of the participatory process will be developed, continuing with the thematic tables that will allow for deepening the analysis and the joint construction of proposals for the future of tourism in Concordia. This first meeting evidenced that Concordia is preparing to face the challenges of current tourism with coherent, contextualized, and legitimate planning, oriented toward defining public policies, programs, and projects in the medium and long term.
Present were the Secretary of Productive Development, Federico Schattenhofer; Mg. Pamela Velich, Secretariat of University Extension of the Faculty of Administration Sciences of the National University of Entre Ríos (UNER-FCDA); Dr. María Lucila Salessi, Director of the Tourism Degree program at UNER; members of the Mixed Tourism Entity of Concordia (EMCONTUR): Leonardo Schey (ACTITUR), Mario Doval (CCISC), Leandro Lapiduz (AHGC and FEHGRA), and Ariel Fink (UTHGRA).
Also accompanying this day were the Secretary of Human Development, Sebastián Arístide; the Undersecretary of Culture and Education, Carlos Gatto; council members; local institutions, municipal tourism representatives from the Salto Grande region, tourism sector professionals, and university students.