Benidorm launches tender for ‘Gemelo Digital’ project to create an advanced data and AI infrastructure to serve the local economy

Benidorm City Council has launched the tender for the ‘Gemelo Digital’ project, which aims to monitor population fluctuations in the city, both resident and transient, with a special focus on tourism. This contract falls under Component 14, Investment 1, Sub-measure 2 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, funded by the European Union's Next Generation EU program, for which the City Council was granted a total of €5.5 million.

Specifically, this is Action 7 of the 2023 Destination Tourism Sustainability Plan ‘Green Benidorm,’ one of 16 actions grouped into four strategic axes. It falls under axis 3 – Digital Transition – and is titled ‘Digital Twin DTI for calculating the transient population.’

The contract price is €133,888.22, and the execution period is three months. It will be awarded through an open process, and the bid submission deadline is March 17.

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, announced that the objective is “to provide a platform that allows for the dynamic estimation of the transient population and its interaction with urban services, with special attention to the tourism sector.” This system will integrate multiple operational and contextual data sources—both municipal and external—and will provide estimation, forecasting, and simulation services “that support evidence-based municipal decision-making.” Thus, based on this evidence, the system will offer an online visualization service with continuously updated maps and indicators that will allow, among other things, “the characterization of tourism types and their spatial distribution, the analysis of their evolution over time, and the provision of operational knowledge for the planning and management of municipal services,” the mayor explained.

Toni Pérez elaborated on this project, stating that it aims to create “an advanced data and artificial intelligence infrastructure” to serve the local economy, enabling hotels, restaurants, and businesses to “access predictive tools that will improve their competitiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.”

Among the expected results once the platform is implemented are up-to-date monitoring of beach occupancy, prediction of tourist arrivals, real-time parking monitoring, and the evolution and prediction of beach occupancy, among others. To achieve this, Pérez explained, “predictive scenarios for the municipality and tourism activity will be simulated, and the business sector will be incorporated into the use of the Digital Twin, as well as startups and newly created companies. The technological infrastructure of the Innovation Hub will also be leveraged.”

The platform should be implemented and operational within three months, according to the planned schedule. The first month will be dedicated to analysis and design, while the second will be used for data integration, algorithm development, and configuration of the visualisation platform. The final month will be used for pilot testing, validation, and final deployment and integration. This period will be followed by one year of support and incident management, as well as the implementation of any offered improvements.