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Stresses that the designation of Cartagena would mean increasing by 250,000 the number of tourists who visit the city every year, to reach 575,000

The president of the Community, Fernando López Miras, said today that "Cartagena has landscapes and attractions more than enough to become the great capital of tourism in the Mediterranean coast, and also act as a growth engine for the tourism sector not only in the Region , but also throughout the southeast of Spain, "after signing with the City Council the protocol of collaboration between both administrations to promote the declaration of Cartagena as a World Heritage Site by Unesco.

"Cartagena is situated in a unique natural environment," said López Miras, who alluded to the fact that the city "throughout its extraordinary history, was key in the history of the Mediterranean, its cultures, its empires, including the most powerful that the world has known: Spanish. "

Thus, he stressed that "it must become part, on its own merits, in that chosen group of cities whose urban complexes are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site" and said that "Cartagena does not detract or have anything to envy to any of they".

Currently, 15 Spanish cities have the declaration of World Heritage: Alcalá de Henares, Ávila, Baeza, Cáceres, Córdoba, Cuenca, Ibiza, Mérida, Salamanca, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santiago de Compostela, Segovia, Tarragona, Toledo and Úbeda.

Since 1972, Unesco has been grouping cities with rich cultural heritage under the 'World Heritage' program, the most important initiative that exists in this field and whose objective is to catalog, preserve and publicize sites of unique cultural and natural importance for common heritage.

"The designation of Cartagena as a World Heritage City will be a stimulus that will expand the maximum potential demand in the medium term to some 250,000 new tourists, and raise the total number of visitors in the municipality from 325,000 registered in the last year until 575,000, "he said.

López Miras, who signed last Friday the Order to initiate the file to promote the declaration of Cartagena as a World Heritage Site, explained that "we officially initiate the legal procedures that, without a doubt, are going to lead to achieve the highest degree of protection and cultural consideration that exists worldwide. "

"In a few places, not only from Spain, but from Europe, the vestiges of so many civilizations can live so harmoniously and beautifully," said the president, who valued the Carthaginian city and the Roman Carthage Nova, "with impressive remains preserved from the imperial era. "

He also highlighted "the traces of the city whose medieval castle presides over its coat of arms", and referred to the military and illustrated Cartagena of Carlos III, "with its spectacular succession of walls, forts, barracks and castles, which found continuity in the coastal battery belt works started a hundred years ago ";

and the modernist Cartagena of the early twentieth century, "that still catches us with its unique beauty, unmatched in the rest of the Region."

In short, he said that it is "so many monumental cities superimposed on one, a luxury that we must know how to make the most of today."

"We are going to turn Cartagena, in our own right, into our tourist flagship, which, without a doubt, will be reinforced when in a few weeks the physical transfer of the tourism counseling takes place to the very heart of this great city , to the Forum Building, "said the head of the regional Executive.

The declaration of the city of Cartagena as World Heritage would be added to other aspects of our culture and our traditions already recognized by Unesco, such as Levantine paleolithic rock art, the Council of Good Men of the Huerta de Murcia, flamenco, falconry, tamborradas or the Mediterranean diet.

Source: CARM