The visit was part of the commercial mission organized by ICEX in the Canary Islands to learn about best practices in sustainable tourism.
The Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies, an entity under the Tenerife Island Council, received on Thursday, January 25, 2024, a delegation composed of representatives from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Philippine Department of Tourism.
The visit to ITER by this delegation was part of the program of visits and business 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, Undersecretary for Sustainable Tourism at the Philippine Department of Tourism, consisted of two technicians from the Government of the Philippines; Louise Twining-Ward, Private Sector Specialist from The World Bank; Wouter Shalken, Sustainable Tourism Specialist from 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 Directorate of Trade of ICEX in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Silvia Camacho Martín, from the International Tendering Program TENDERboost of Proexca.
The main objective of the visit to ITER was for the group to learn about the main activities and projects of the institute, especially those related to bioclimatic architecture and the integration of renewables that could serve as examples to be replicated in some regions of the Philippines.
The group was received at the Visitors’ Center where a brief introduction to the projects and facilities was given, followed by a visit to the Teide-HPC supercomputer and the Bioclimatic Houses, ITER’s real-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 surroundings. 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 tendering program TENDERboost, together with the Tenerife Island Council, organized two business meetings with the delegation so that entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the islands’ tourism sector could share success stories 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 smart tourist destinations.