Balearic Islands defend sustainable regulation of nautical tourism at the 3rd Gaceta Náutica Forum

Regional Minister Lafuente and the Director General for Ports and Maritime Transport, Toni Mercant, took part in the debate panels on the challenges facing nautical tourism and port management.

The Regional Minister for the Sea and the Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, and the Director General for Ports and Maritime Transport, Toni Mercant, took part yesterday, Monday 15th of June, in the 3rd Gaceta Náutica Forum, held at the Port Center in Palma under the title “The Challenges of Nautical Tourism”. The event brought together institutional representatives, legal experts and business leaders to analyse the main challenges facing the nautical sector in the Balearic Islands.

During his speech in the debate panel “Challenges and Regulation of Nautical Tourism in the Balearic Islands”, the regional minister presented the planning model promoted by the Government of the Balearic Islands, based on sustainability, legal certainty and the protection of professional activity.

Lafuente stressed the strategic role of nautical activity in the Balearic economy and defended the need to regulate the sector in order to guarantee its future viability: “Nautical activity is not a complementary activity within our economy. It is a strategic activity that generates employment, wealth and opportunities across all the islands.” In this regard, the regional minister emphasised that “regulation is not a tool to limit nautical activity; it is a tool to protect it”, and insisted that the debate should not be framed as a choice between economic activity and sustainability, but rather as a way to ensure that the sector’s development is compatible with the conservation of the coastline and marine resources.

During his remarks, he also defended the Government’s position regarding the liberalisation of the rental of private recreational vessels, recalling that the Balearic Islands were the first autonomous community to oppose this measure in order to preserve the balance of the sector.

Lafuente also highlighted the actions promoted by the Government in relation to the protection of Posidonia oceanica seagrass, the implementation of ecological buoy fields, coastal surveillance and the fight against illegal charter activity, as well as the launch of the Nautical Roundtable of the Balearic Islands as a stable space for participation and consensus with the sector.

The regional minister also praised initiatives such as Setmana Blava, aimed at fostering a responsible nautical culture and bringing the sea closer to the public through outreach and training. In this regard, he argued that the sustainability of the sector depends not only on regulation, but also on awareness-raising, the training of sailors and the involvement of all stakeholders connected to nautical activity.

During the debate, Lafuente called for progress towards a shared strategy that would allow the growth of nautical tourism to be managed intelligently. The regional minister said it was necessary to move towards a reference framework that establishes common general guidelines, while at the same time allowing measures to be adapted to the specific reality of each territory. “Each autonomous community has its own characteristics and faces different challenges. The Balearic Islands, as the leading nautical destination in the Mediterranean, need tools that take this singularity into account,” he explained.

In this respect, he defended the need for administrations, companies and organisations to work together to define a shared roadmap that will allow the quality of the sector to continue improving. Among the main lines of work, he highlighted the training of sailors, the professionalisation of the activity, maritime safety, environmental sustainability, the promotion of good practices and the drive for investments that contribute to modernising infrastructure and services linked to nautical activity.

“The most important thing is to continue improving what we already have. The steps we take must help us achieve a higher-quality, more sustainable sector that is better prepared to face the challenges of the future. We must do this together, through consensus and with a plurality of opinions, because that is the only way to move towards intelligent management of nautical tourism that guarantees a balance between economic activity, public use and the conservation of the marine environment,” he concluded.

The forum structured the debate into four panels dedicated to the legal, institutional and business aspects linked to nautical tourism, with the aim of analysing the current context of the sector and exploring avenues for consensus that would make it possible to reconcile economic development with environmental and social sustainability.

As part of the forum, the Director General for Ports and Maritime Transport, Toni Mercant, took part in the panel “Tourism Activity in the Ports of the Balearic Islands”, where he addressed the management of tourism activity in regional ports and the challenges associated with its organisation and sustainability.