We want Catalonia to be a better territory to live in and a better destination to visit. Thinking of our country without taking the tourism sector into account is practically impossible: it represents 12% of GDP and 14% of employment. That is why we have to ensure that we respond to the new global challenges that this powerful economic sector is facing. And this path is what we have begun to take with the National Commitment for Responsible Tourism, a transversal agreement in which unions, employers, environmental entities or neighborhood federations, among many other actors, have set a road map on where it has to go. to transit this key sector.
From the Government of the Generalitat we have a clearly transformative vocation: we work to manage the present effectively and efficiently, but also to promote those structural changes that we believe the country needs. And now is the time to transform the tourism sector, to equip ourselves with a new shared model, more ethical, innovative and responsible.
Because the 20th century had different parameters than today. We are an international benchmark tourist power in many aspects. We have built some very important structures that have valued who we are and what we represent. But the 21st century asks us for more.
We are in a context of global and accelerated changes in all areas. The meaning of these changes, however, remains to be decided. We can direct them to the collective benefit, to the response to the major challenges we face. In the case of tourism, this is what we began to do with the Compromís: move towards a more sustainable model from an environmental, social, economic and innovative point of view. Towards a more balanced and diversified model at the territorial, temporal and typological level.
And this milestone can only be reached with dialogue and an outstretched hand, reconciling different legitimate interests for the benefit of the country. The Compromís is the result of a process of collective participation. For 13 months, a plurality of very diverse entities have carried out an exercise in generosity to put differences aside and seek a common denominator to define what the responsible tourism we want is like.
More than 7,000 people have participated in this process of collective transformation, which has resulted in an agreement that already has 111 adhesions from entities of all kinds, and that is open to adding new ones. There is no place in the world that has an agreement of these characteristics, although some destinations are committed to and reflect on the visitor's economy, responsible tourism and environmental sustainability.
To achieve this transformation that the agreement seeks, we have a committed ecosystem, the assets and the necessary consensus. That allows us to guarantee a responsible tourism model with the environment, with decent work, with society and with the planet. An attractive tourism for the person who visits the country, but at the same time, positive for the territory as a whole, beneficial for Catalans and Catalan women, and a generator of prosperity.
But with the presentation of the Compromís nothing ends. Now that we know where we want to go, it is up to us to work on an operational plan that makes it possible to achieve what we have agreed to in this agreement.
We count on the entities and companies of the sector to achieve it together. Because Catalonia is a tourist country, which has a strong and resilient industry to be part of the solution to the great challenges we face.
