Sports as a Catalyst for Nautical Tourism. Nautical Clubs and Grassroots Sports (Roundtable)
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Sports as a Catalyst for Nautical Tourism. Nautical Clubs and Grassroots Sports (Roundtable)
José Ramón Lete Lasa, Secretary General for Sports of the Xunta de Galicia
Xisela Aranda, Sports Director of Pontevedra Provincial Council
Marcos Guisasola, Sports Councilor of Sanxenxo City Council
María Ángeles Vidal Ruiz, Managing Director of Valencia Municipal Sports Foundation
A roundtable was held on sports as a driver of nautical tourism.
The Sanxenxo Experience
Marcos Guisasola opened the session highlighting Sanxenxo’s maritime tradition, which since the 1970s has turned nautical activity into one of its main tourist attractions. The municipality has the Juan Carlos I marina, managed by Nauta Sanxenxo (100% municipal), which has demonstrated that public management can be as efficient as private management.
Sanxenxo has hosted more than 20 sailing events in the last year, with milestones such as the 2005 Volvo Ocean Race, which put the municipality on the international map. The marina has quality certifications (Q for quality, Blue Flag, S for sustainability) and has ambitious future projects, including a 13 million investment in Sanxenxo port and an even larger project for Porto Novo.
The city council is also investing more than 36 million in modernizing sewage and treatment networks, because as Guisasola pointed out, “networks are fundamental in environmental matters and the cleaner and more sanitary, it’s an essential requirement”.
The Legacy of the America’s Cup in Valencia
María Ángeles Vidal shared the Valencia experience after hosting the America’s Cup. This event transformed not only the city urbanistically, but left a fundamental sports legacy: the Municipal Sailing School.
Valencia had a historic problem: the city lived with its back to the sea. The America’s Cup broke that urban and psychological barrier. Even traffic light cycles were changed to facilitate access to the maritime area.
The key to Valencia’s success has been bringing sailing closer to all citizens, not just elites. The Municipal Sailing School, created in collaboration with the Valencian Community Sailing Federation, has gone from 700-800 annual uses at its inception to over 20,000 in 2024. The model includes people with special needs, university students, transit visitors and technical training.
“The most important thing is that we’re talking about dialogue, that the sailing world has its municipal school and has its entry door through a totally public structure,” Vidal explained. The secret: working Monday through Friday, integrating nautical activity into the daily life of schools and families.
The Pontevedra Provincial Council Approach
Xisela Aranda, who was a Spanish squash champion before becoming sports director, presented a very practical vision of grassroots sports. For her, sport is a continuous line that starts at the base and ends in high performance, and both extremes feed each other.
The Provincial Council launched the “Onoso Club” program (noso = our in Galician), which goes beyond traditional sports schools. The goal is to guarantee free physical activity for boys and girls, complemented with nutrition workshops, emotional management and meetings with high-level athletes.
“Will you reach the high level or not? Because in the end the child enters Onoso Club and then decides if they want to continue. But if they don’t make it, nothing happens. Because everything that sport has given them will always be very positive,” Aranda explained.
Of the 437 high-level athletes in the province of Pontevedra, 185 are from nautical sports, which gives an idea of the sector’s importance in the area.
Galicia’s Institutional Perspective
José Ramón Lete Lasa, with his long experience in Galician sports management, provided the broader context. Galicia has 320,000 sports licenses, representing 12% of the population (compared to 8.7% national average). High-level athletes have gone from 300 in 2009 to almost 1,700 today.
But the most striking figure: of Galicia’s 23 Olympic medals, 18 are from nautical sports (3 from sailing, 14 from canoeing and 1 from triathlon). It’s no coincidence: the only specialized centers that Galicia has are for canoeing and sailing.
Lete recalled the historic commitment of 2003-2005, when Galicia brought the Volvo Ocean Race for the first time to a non-British port, 100 optimist dinghies were purchased for the “Sailing at school” program, and the Verducido regatta field for canoeing was declared of public interest.
The legacy of that investment (12-14 million euros in donations with tax benefits) transformed Galician sport. “It’s the virtuous circle. Our boys and girls won’t go if they don’t have role models and if we have a base and we have a pyramid, we reach the top,” he explained.
Currently, 150,000 boys and girls (66.6% of the total) participate in school sports programs in Galicia, with the Xunta paying the sports insurance for all licenses.
The Challenge of Growing Sailing
Despite the successes, some challenges became evident. Sailing licenses in Galicia have stagnated around 2,000 (with a post-pandemic uptick that then fell). José Ramón Lete raised the need to build public ramps to facilitate access: “A mobility scooter is more expensive than an optimist. What we have to do is make it easy for people to reach public ramps”.
The importance of integrating sailing into the school curriculum of coastal cities was also mentioned, something done sporadically but should be more systematic.
Conclusions
The common denominator of all interventions was clear: sailing schools and grassroots sports are fundamental for the development of nautical tourism. But creating infrastructure is not enough; we must:
- Bring the sea to people: Break down psychological and urban barriers, as Valencia did.
- Make sailing accessible: Public prices, free programs, facilitate physical access.
- Integrate into daily life: Bring sailing to schools, work Monday through Friday.
- Create role models: High-level athletes inspire younger ones.
- Think about legacy: Major events only make sense if they leave a lasting structure.
- Continuity: Projects need time and long-term vision.
As María Ángeles Vidal summarized: “The key is to reach children through the children’s environment. We must bring schools to the beach, we must bring schools to the ports”.
And in Xisela Aranda’s words: “Above being a sports director, I’m an athlete and I think that will always be so”. That passion for sport, transmitted from public institutions, nautical clubs and federations, is what can grow nautical tourism in a sustainable and inclusive way.