Parras de la Fuente seeks to become a tourist pole in the north of the country

Parras de la Fuente, Coah. For the next five years, Parras de la Fuente seeks to consolidate itself as the most important destination in the northern region of the country, competing with places such as Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California and approaching the tourist practice of San Miguel Allende in Guanajuato, assured Mayor Fernando Orozco. Lara.

In an interview with El Economista, he explained that they seek to compete directly with these two destinations due to the wine-producing vocation they share, specifically with Valle de Guadalupe, because they are the main attractors of international visitors, such as those from the United States and Canada, added to the fact that they are the most important tourist places without beach.

“Whenever we talk about the north and tourism, at least nationally, Valle de Guadalupe and the Baja California peninsulas come to mind as a reference, but it is time for Parras to come in, there is water here, a perfect climate and that gives us a lot of advantage over other destinations in the region and the country Add to that Parras is positioned two and a half hours from Nuevo León, that we have Texas, United States, four hours away and that is a tremendous opportunity to bring us this type of tourism, the type of investors,” he added.

To fulfill the task, the mayor explained that a plan made up of five axes was developed. The first has to do with security, focused on reducing crime rates, where it stands out that in a first cut of 10 months, since his administration began, insecurity rates have been lowered by an average of 35%, added to the fact that created the municipal Tourist Police and WhatsApp groups for complaints.

The second axis has to do with the opening of the universal investment simplification window, aimed at propping up the tourist infrastructure and from which it stands out that the municipality currently has just over 740 hotel rooms and 200 Airbnb rooms.

“Hotels urge us, restaurants urge us, nightclubs for young people urge us. What we want is to create an experience as a municipality and that is why we are working closely together ”, she deepened.

The mayor pointed out that the third axis focuses on being the most competitive in terms of charging for services and products, this from a digitization of payments, as well as also receiving dollars.

“I see Parras in four or five years that throughout the Historic Center is being sold in dollars,” he added.

While the fourth point of the strategy has focused on improving public services, where the creation of the Directorate of Transportation for mobility and transportation stands out, as well as guaranteeing drinking water.

“Today what we see is that for tourism to be competitive we also have to have the best infrastructure in terms of mobility (…) We are also already equipping more drinking water wells, to give our municipality more development and give more openness to the come to want to buy land that have options”, he stressed.

As the fifth guiding axis of this plan, Orozco Lara deepened that the Technological University of Parras is being promoted, so that it is a leader in the preparation of all the members of the tourist chain; in addition to twinning not only with institutions but with more destinations, such as Texas.

For this purpose, an agreement was signed this year with this institution and also with the state government.

“We are preparing ourselves to be able to grow, we are preparing people so that when the investor arrives, the skilled labor is there to be able to provide that service that tourism deserves,” he deepened.

Analysis

On how to know if the strategy is on the right track, the mayor indicated that they are preparing a package of measurement mechanisms to know in which areas to invest to later present to investors.

“We are working with a lot of planning so that it can be diversified, it is a count that we want to carry out,” said the mayor.

Parras de la Fuente is located in southern Coahuila and joined the Pueblos Mágicos program in 2004.

estados@eleconomista.mx