<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Council of Ministers authorized on Tuesday the use of remaining funds from the 2025 fiscal year to finance promotional activities for the 2026 fiscal year by the Tourism Offices at Spanish Diplomatic Missions.</strong></h4> According to the Government, the tourism policy objectives of increasing the profitability of tourism by contributing to deseasonalization and geographical decentralization require working with partners in source markets from the beginning of each fiscal year, when product offerings for the spring and summer season are finalized, especially for long-haul markets. The mechanism for financing the promotional activities of the Operational Plan for Tourism Offices at Spanish Diplomatic Missions Abroad has typically been advance payments to be justified, charged to the TURESPAÑA budget. The processing of these releases means that promotional activities can only begin in the third month of each year, when a significant volume of holiday bookings has already been made in the main international tourist-generating markets. “In this sense, carrying out promotional activities in the first four months of the year is key,” the Executive warns. The work carried out by the Regional Ministries abroad involves more than 2,400 promotional activities that are negotiated in the last quarter of the previous year. Therefore, in the Government's view, it is necessary that these negotiations be conducted with the guarantee of sufficient funding to ensure maximum efficiency and the best possible results. “The circumstances described warrant more agile action on the part of the Administration, which justifies the proposed measure of financing a percentage of the promotional activities corresponding to the first four months of the year with remaining funds from the previous year,” it continues. Therefore, and in accordance with Article 79 of the General Budget Law of 2003, it is proposed that advance payments to be justified abroad be made to each Ministry, for an amount of 3,221,514.93 euros and 60,000 US dollars charged to the current year, to cover the activities of international tourism promotion of the Ministry in the first four months of the following year.
