The GFSB has last month held a Tourism Town Hall meeting with numerous business owners in the tourism sector. The objective of this meeting was for businesses to voice their concerns on tourism-related matters as well as collectively think about ideas and initiatives that the private sector can do to improve tourism in Gibraltar. 

One of the issues raised by businesses, particularly in the Ocean Village area, has been that since the opening of the East Side tunnel, Google Maps is directing pedestrians entering Gibraltar to walk through the tunnel in order to get to Ocean Village and into the town centre, instead of showing them the much shorter route across the runway. This has meant pedestrians had to endure a 40min walk (2.8Km), instead of the calm, easy and traffic free 15min walk across the runway (1km). 

Business owners claimed that this has discouraged visitors from coming to Ocean Village as well as given visitors a bad experience of Gibraltar, especially to those arriving at the airport who could have had a short walk into town, and instead some have been walking with their luggage through the tunnel along a 40min route. 

Following the meeting, GFSB Board Director, Eran Shay, who looks after our tourism sector members, approached his contacts in Google’s offices and explained the problem to them, and we are happy to announce that Google have swiftly fixed this error and Google Maps are now directing pedestrians along the much shorter route across the runway. 

Commenting on this success, Eran said:
“At the GFSB we believe that there are many things that the private sector can do to improve the tourism experience in Gibraltar, and we are at the moment consolidating various ideas and suggestions from our members. Some of these matters can be handled straight away, like this Google Maps error and some may require further consultation, but the bottom line is that when we all get together we can get things done!”. 

Any businesses who would like to share their ideas, suggestions and concerns, regardless if they are members or not, are welcome to write to the GFSB’s dedicated tourism mailbox: [email protected]

Google Maps screenshot above showing the pedestrian route from the border to Ocean Village, as previously displayed by Google, along with the shorter route across the runway highlighted in Yellow.