Yesterday my husband went along to a meeting here in Marbella along with the Mayoress of Marbella, the Junta de Andalucia and the Tourism Office.
They are all working hard to make a better name for Marbella. Marbella is a fantastic place, close to the UK, sunshine, beaches, great for sporting events, but all the bad press, the corruption scandals - well its taken its good name away.
Even we wondered what we were doing living in a place like this, full of corruption & backhanders right on our doorstep.
But these people want change and they are asking us foreigners for our help too into making Marbella a great holiday destination and a fantastic place to live.
I already put in one of my requests which was to make taxis have meters. Taxis are often holiday makers first port of call and many times I know they have ripped people off charging 100€ for a 60€ job. They cover up the fixed prices at the airport so noone knows what the price is meant to be and holiday makers do not know about the price book they carry. A meter in the taxi will stop people getting ripped off.
Another thing that many people are disliking are the prostitutes in Puerto Banus that seem to be moving near to front line pestering men as they walk by.
What upsets you about Marbella?
What do you want to see changed?
Leave your comments and I will foward them.
1 comments:
It was an interesting meeting although they didn't really get into a lot of detail.
There were around 300 people there from all nationalities, it was good to see such interest.
They outlined rough plans they had, things like a University Of Marbella that is to be built in San Pedro, the creation of a lot of green areas (parks etc), a new technology park and a need to keep with the new building plan that has been agreed.
The other big push is of course on tourism and they are setting out on a plan that is loosely based on Valencia & Barcelona's plan to boost tourism in the last few years. I hope this succeeds as both Barcelona and Valencia have made great strides in promoting themselves, Valencia even has a road Formula 1 Grand Prix!
Marbella now also has an expanded Foreign Residents Department an they are actively asking us to contact them if we have any problems or questions, especially business related! I will post all the contact details up here when I get them.
You can listen to an interview between Maurice Boland and the Mayoress of Marbella on Radio Talk Europe which touches on a lot of these issues...and she speaks English!
http://www.talkradioeurope.com/
If you are setting up a business in Marbella make sure you go and get fre advice and support from CADE in Marbella. Cade is the Marbella BusinessSupport Department and is run by Mr Óscar Fernández. The address is Avd Ricardo Soriano 66, Marbella, Málaga. They provide advice on setting up and running a business, what grants etc could be available and if some cases they can even provide you with an invoice for 6 months to help you get things going...this is something I wish was here 7 years ago when I set up here!
On another note, it wasn't all about making money, it was also about making the community better....better schools, better health centres etc...
All in all, good stuff...they are making an effort to change things, we should welcome this and aplaude the efforts being made to both change Marbella and embrace the Foreign Businesses and residents alike...
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