The visit was part of the trade mission organized by ICEX in the Canary Islands to learn about best practices in sustainable tourism.
Last Thursday, January 25, 2024, the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies, an entity dependent on the Cabildo of Tenerife, received the visit of a delegation made up of representatives of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Ministry of Tourism of the Philippines.
The visit to ITER of this delegation was part of the program of visits and commercial meetings organized by ICEX in Tenerife and El Hierro, with the main objective of getting to know closely the best practices and projects in sustainable tourism developed in the Canary Islands.
The delegation, led by Shereen Gail C Yu-Pamintuan, Deputy Secretary for Sustainable Tourism at the Department of Tourism of the Philippines, was composed of two technical experts from the Government of the Philippines; Louise Twining-Ward, Private Sector Specialist at The World Bank; Wouter Shalken, Sustainable Tourism Specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB); and José Varea Ortega, Head of the Multilateral Department of the Embassy of Spain in Manila.
Accompanying the mission were Cristina García Castro, Félix García Albornoz and Ángel Parra Dávila, from the Territorial Direction of Commerce of ICEX in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Silvia Camacho Martín, from the International Tenders Program TENDERboost of Proexca.
The main objective of the visit to ITER was for the group to know the main activities and projects of the institute and, especially, those related to bioclimatic architecture and the integration of renewable energies that could serve as examples to be replicated in some regions of the Philippines.
The group was welcomed at the Visitors Center where a brief introduction to the projects and facilities was given, and then continued with a visit to the Teide-HPC supercomputer and the Biolcimatic Houses, ITER’s full-scale bioclimatic laboratory. These 24 houses are part of an international project that combines architecture and sustainability to create a habitable environment in harmony with the natural environment. Designed with bioclimatic criteria, they take advantage of local climatic conditions to reduce the need for artificial energy and improve energy efficiency.
In addition to the visit to ITER, Proexca and the Chambers of Commerce of the Canary Islands through the international tender program TENDERboost, together with the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, organized two business meetings with the delegation so that the entrepreneurs and agents involved in the tourism sector of the islands could share successful experiences and lessons learned, their know-how in the sector, in those topics of interest to the delegation, especially related to the planning of sustainable and intelligent tourist destinations.
