The mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, has expressed interest in Palma being considered to be a European Capital of Culture in 2030. He also wants to put the historic centre of Palma forward for consideration as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
These ambitions emerged at last week's meeting of the Palma 365 Tourism Foundation to approve the budget for 2024.
Martínez regretted the fact that, for the first time since the foundation was established in early 2012, opposition parties had voted against contributing funds to it. In all previous years, the mayor noted, left-wing parties had either voted in favour of tourism promotion or had abstained. They had never been against, leaving Martínez to conclude that the left is opposed to any tourism promotion of Palma in 2024.
He pointed out that the managing director of the foundation, Pedro Homar, has remained in place regardless of whether the right or the left has been governing the town hall. The same foundation team remains, as do its trustees. In the end, a total budget of just under 2.2 million euros was approved.
* As far as the European Capital of Culture is concerned, no cities have currently been selected for 2030, but two countries have been (Belgium and Cyprus). A third country has yet to be chosen. For 2031, Spain is one of two countries which have been selected.
Spain has had four capitals of culture since the programme started in 1985 - Madrid (1992), Santiago de Compostela (2000), Salamanca (2002) and San Sebastián in 2016.