The mayor of Alcalá de Henares, Judith Piquet, attended this morning the ceremony for the diploma accrediting the Cervantes Week as a Festival of International Tourist Interest. The event, organized by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism on the occasion of World Tourism Day, was attended by Minister Jordi Hereu and Secretary of State for Tourism, Rosario Sánchez Grau.
Piquet celebrated this distinction as a crucial boost for the tourist and cultural projection of Alcalá de Henares, a city declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO. "This declaration, for which we have worked with great dedication in recent years, does justice to a celebration and a motive that have always had a very universal vocation, which is to honor the most illustrious son of Alcalá, Miguel de Cervantes, with art, culture, and popular festivities in the exceptional setting of a World Heritage City," stated the mayor.
The Cervantes Week is one of the main cultural and tourist events in Alcalá de Henares. Every October, the historic center transforms to host a wide program linked to the figure of Miguel de Cervantes.
Among the highlighted activities are the Cervantes Market, the Civic Procession with Cervantes' baptismal record, the Popular Reading of Don Quixote, the Old and Occasional Book Fair, the Ciudad de Alcalá Awards, as well as various cultural proposals and historical reenactments.
The mayor wished to share this recognition with all the groups that make the celebration possible: municipal workers, merchants, hoteliers, cultural and social entities, and especially, the residents of Alcalá. "This recognition belongs to all of Alcalá: to those who have worked for so many years to enhance the Cervantes Week, to our merchants and hoteliers, to the entities and groups that participate in it, and especially, to the people of Alcalá who make this celebration their own each year," she emphasized.
The mayor was accompanied at this event by deputy mayors Isabel Ruiz Maldonado and Gustavo Severien, and the Councilor for Culture, Santiago Alonso.
