ANDALUCIA TOURISM NEWS – OCTOBER 24 2002

SIERRA NEVADA RECTOR PLAN
The Sierra Nevada National Park, in Granada, will see a Rector Plan which will cover the criteria of management, use and conservation of this natural space. This plan, approved by the Commission for the management of the National Parks in Andalucía, also establishes the areas which will have restricted use and those considered as a reserves where only research activities will be allowed. Among the areas with special protection we find the beauty of the water of the high mountain lakes and the botanical enclaves of Dehesa del Camarate and the Finca de las Dehesillas.
In the same meeting, the commission approved the draft of the Rector Plan for the Doñana National Park, in which water and land preservation projects and others linked to the conservation of threatened species are included.

HOLY WEEK TOURIST ROUTE
Nine municipalities in four Andalucian provinces have constituted the tourist consortium 'Caminos de Pasión' in a decisive move to set up a new tourist route which will have holy week in the provinces of Córdoba, Seville, Málaga and Jaén as its centre. This consortium will manage the project which has the objective of promoting the heritage of nine towns via the richness of their holy week celebrations, declared to be of National Tourist Interest in Andalucía. The municipalities involved are Estepa, Osuna and Marchena in Seville province, Priego de Córdoba, Lucena, Puente Genil and Baena in Córdoba, Alcalá La Real in Jaén, and Antequera in Málaga province. As well as dramatic holy weeks, these municipalities also have rich monumental and gastronomic heritages in common. In addition the relative closeness of these nine towns allows the establishing of a tourist route between them not only for Holy Week but also year round.

NEW TICKET TO ALHAMBRA GARDENS
The management of the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, will start to issue a new ticket on November 15, at a price of 3€ which will allow you to visit the different garden areas of the monument, independently from the normal ticket which also gives access to the Nazrid palaces. The new ticket will ignore the monument itself but give a specific route through the gardens of El Partal and El Generalife as well as the military zone of La Alcazaba. The daily number of visitors to the site will not be reduced by the new ticket, but will be redistributed, given that unsold tickets for the palaces will be offered for the special visit to the gardens of the site. This new option which is cheaper and has no restricted times, includes a route through the Paseo de los Cipreses, El Jardin de los Adarves, El Pórtico del Palacio and the gardens of the Generalife.

TOURIST STIMULATION PLAN
A total of nine municipalities from inland Málaga province will benefit from the first Tourist Stimulation Plan for the Sierra de las Nieves and its surroundings – a biosphere reserve. These municipalities are Alozaina, El Burgo, Casarabonela, Guaro, Istán, Monda, Ojén, Tolox and Yunquera. The plan intends to increase the social well-being, guarantee the development of tourist activity, and strengthen measures to improve the area, preserving all the local natural resources. This is a pioneering project – such a stimulation programme has never before been applied for an interior municipality in Málaga. In fact the intention is to improve the qualifications of the human resources, better promote and sell the destination, new tourist offices, environmental routes, as well as developing these open spaces as tourist attractions.

VISITS TO THE JEREZ CARRIAGES MUSEUM
The Couplings and Carriages Museum in Jerez de la Frontera, in Cádiz, has received more than 3,000 visits since it was inaugurated on September 17. The first popularity indications for the new museum, as seen by its managers, show a large increase in interest in all things related to the equestrian world, because of the celebration of the World Equestrian Games held between September 10 and 22. The promoters of this new museum complex, situated in the old Pemartín bodegas, have described these results as exceptional, and hope that the number of visits will increase over the rest of this year to reach 20,000. The work at the centre is now centred in promoting the Carriages Museum to tour operators and travel agents so they can include it in their tourist packages, with the intention of better promoting Jerez and its equestrian infrastructure.

CAZORLA THEATRE FESTIVAL 2002
The town of Cazorla, in the heart of the nature park of the same name in the middle of Jáen province, becomes at this time of the year, the stage for the best theatre groups from across the world who come to take part in the Cazorla International Theatre Festival. The fourth edition of this festival brings us, until December 14, a dozen groups from places as far a field as Australia, United States or Italy, or as close as Granada, Barcelona, Seville, or Jaén itself, in attempt to promote Cazorla to the theatrical world and make it into a meeting place for acrobats, jugglers, puppeteers and dancers. This years programme includes sections such as 'The new Jaén stage', 'Cazorla on the street', and the cycle 'Classics of the 20th century', with works by Chekov, Valle-inclán and 'Andalucía hoy' and performances by the Centro Andaluz de Teatro. The Merced theatre in Cazorla and the streets of this beautiful Jaén village are the stage for this new edition of the International Theatre Festival which consolidates itself each year as a meeting point for art and theatre.

PREDATORS EXHIBITION IN GRANADA
Lima, an eagle from the Peruvian Andes which has been bred in captivity, is one of the birds of prey to be used for educational purposes in the Granada Science Park. Just as these animals in the wild, other carnivores feed from their hunting. And this relationship between the predators and their prey is one of the many attractions to this display 'Predators, hunters from nature', co produced with the Natural History Museum in London, and now offered in the Granada science park. The most spectacular part of the exhibition shows three large interactive robots which give life to a shark, chameleon and a spider. The show intends to explain the ecological role of these animals. Another of the areas of the exhibition contains naturalized animals, moving displays, aquariums with live examples, as well as audiovisual display which includes, for the first time anywhere, images from the series 'El Reino de la Luz' co produced by Canal Sur and the BBC.

VOLVO MASTERS ANDALUCIA 2002
The Volvo Masters Andalucía Golf Championship returns to its normal home at the Valderrama Club in the Cádiz town of San Roque, from November 7-10. Here the best European golf professionals will meet - the 55 best players according to the Volvo 2002 order of merit, as well as previous champions and winners of the majors. This course, designed by Robert Trent, has been chosen as the best golf course in Europe over the past eleven years, for its design, its impressive 18 holes, quality of presentation and beautiful surroundings. Valderrama, located in San Roque, in the province of Cádiz, will play host to the 18th edition of the Volvo Masters Andalucía which, after a break, returns to one of the most spectacular golf courses on the Andalucian coast. A tournament which will share out more than 2 million € among the participants, and of those more than 300,000 € go to the winner.