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Public representatives from four continents had an appointment last Monday in Fuengirola. All of them were to participate in the 'International Open Cities Forum', an event which was organised in the municipality for the first time last year and which this year celebrated its second edition with the same objective, to discuss the present and future of tourist destinations with a view to their sustainable growth.
"It is a challenge, but this must be the axis of growth", said the Mayor of Fuengirola, Ana Mula, at the presentation of the forum, in which each of the participants from different parts of the world came to share their experiences of their cities, all of them tourist destinations.
The forum, which had planned presentations and round tables throughout the day, began around 11am, but at 12.30pm, Spain was without electricity. The confusion of the first moments gave way to decision-making and all the protocol that the municipality had organised to attend to the leaders who had landed for the event went down the drain, because the situation became a crisis that had to be managed on many levels.
Among the participants were the Mayor of the district of Miraflores, in Lima (Peru), Carlos Canales; the Mayor of Londonderry (Northern Ireland), Lilian Seenoi-Barr; the first secretary and head of the economic department of the Embassy of Japan, Mai Sasaki; the delegate of the ministry of tourism in Tetuan (Morocco), Omar Zekari; the director of tourism and city brand of Malmö (Sweden), Anna Wittgren, and the councillor for tourism of Santander, Francisco José Arias. Most of them went back to their hotels, where they stayed throughout the day to await developments. All of them have now been able to return home.
Among the few speeches that were made, was that of Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Mayor of Londonderry, a city with a past worth telling and remembering, and with a mayor who also has a story to tell. Lilian is Kenyan by birth. She arrived in Londonderry in 2010 as just another migrant, looking for a new future. "I found a very complex area, but I managed to integrate and give a voice to the immigrant community. I ended up becoming an activist and realised that in order to achieve change it is important to be in politics," she explained.
Lilian is the first black female mayor in Northern Ireland and has been elected as a councillor in a town that is 99 per cent white. "Londonderry has a history of human rights, housing and poverty issues, and a community spirit, which means we have to make way for people who can contribute," she said.
This city, with a tragic past of violence, has managed to achieve peace, and "now resilience and coexistence prevail", so this history has also been used as a tourist focus. "We offer an experience based on authenticity and we tell what the people have been through and what they have achieved," said the mayor, who also spoke of the commitment to culture that they are carrying out.
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