One of the priority actions identified in the “Sustainable Tourism Promotion Study” for Old Saida took place successfully during the month of July complemented with a development of a branding image in to products to promote Saida as a sustainable tourism destination.

Through the Study, the Municipality of Saida wishes to strategize touristic promotion, draw comprehensive touristic measures, develop a touristic brand, and support it through the identification – and implementation of a number of targeted projects. The first actions implemented addresses two of the identified strategic priorities: The development of an International and National Promotion and the amelioration of Saida’s Image and Branding.

Following these two pillars, three pilot actions were developed and implemented as “quick wins”: The replacement of signs at the main sites of the old city, the development of an application and revamping the website of Visit Saida and a training for young people who wanted to become touristic guides of their city.

As a means of promoting the city and increasing access to online promotion, the old signs at the main sites of Saida’s Old City were replaced by new ones, having a QR on them, which directs tourists to Visit Saida website, specifically to the page of the site on which the sign is placed. In order to respond to this action, the website Visit Saida has been put into action and updated.

At the same time, a tourist application specific to the Old City of Saida has been developed as a tool of promotion and communication for the events and updates of the city.

In the end, the third action of the project have consisted of building the capacity of youth from Saida, who have been mobilized from the old city, universities and youth initiatives, providing them with a training to become touristic guides of the city.

To ensure sustainability, after the training, the new guides have been linked to Visit Saida website and application, for tourists to connect and book their guides beforehand.

Concurrently to these actions, a branding proposal has been designed and implemented to ameliorate the Saida’s image and branding. This action has concluded with the design and production of promotion materials for the promotion of sustainable tourism in Saida.

The “Sustainable Tourism Promotion Study” for the city of Saida  has been built with a participatory approach, bringing knowledge and viewpoints of a wide array of stakeholders through individual interviews, online questionnaires and online webinars. The process has been further complemented with capacity  building sessions – with strong technical engagement by the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Tourims Board- addressing both, a benchmarking of sustainable tourism practices with a focus on cities and further, the state of the art of branding strategies and marks. COHESIMED is financed by the Barcelona City Council.