Benidorm presents the first accessible tourist map for the blind and hard of hearing

Benidorm has become one of the few Spanish and European cities to have a tourist map totally accessible for the blind, with vision problems and / or with hearing difficulties. The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, stressed that the edition of this plan is framed "in the commitment to universal accessibility, a fundamental axis of the city project that walks towards the goal of being the first certified intelligent tourist destination in the world" .

Pérez has presented this plan today with the president of the Lions Club, Margarita Matarranz, and other members of the organization; and together with Quico Saval Vicente, a blind young man who participates in the Employment Workshop 'Benidorm VI' and who has actively collaborated in the project.

The mayor explained that the initiative to make a plan "accessible to all" came from the Lions Club, and has the support of the State Representative Platform for People with Physical Disabilities (Predif) and the 'app' Tur4all with which the City Council collaborates in different projects.

The president of Lions Club affirmed that the mayor "got excited" with the edition of this plan. He also applauded that this initiative is "already a reality" and that it has added that it encartates with the policy of attention to blind people deployed by the organization.

The design and preparation of the plan, supervised by the Department of Tourism, has been carried out by the company Puntodis, an expert in accessibility in communication; It is written in Braille and has a QR code that gives access to a voice map in six languages: Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese and Italian. In addition, this sound map has different listening and reading speeds.

Quico Saval has ensured that "the relief and braille" of the map are "simply spectacular", and explained that at the time of design has had to "make a balance between the available information and the physical space of the map" due to the size of the points of this system of reading and writing. The young man, who has shown how the voice map works, has highlighted the fact that it can be updated whenever necessary to warn users of incidents, events or works that are made at some point along the route and that can be updated. suppose some obstacle, making it possible for them to look for streets or alternative routes.

The plan is centered in the old town and shows a "totally accessible" route -also for people with reduced mobility-, the location of the three urban beaches and the tourist office of El Torrejó, and 16 points of interest -all of them referenced in Google Maps - among which are the Boca Calvari Museum, the parks of l'Aigüera and Elche, the walks, El Castell or the tapas and shopping areas.

For the moment, 500 copies of this map have been published, which will be available at the tourist office of El Torrejó and in the buildings included within the points of interest that have municipal personnel.