Digital Tourist 2020 will addres in Benidorm technological solutions for tourism recovery in 'post Covid-19' times

Benidorm will once again host the Digital Tourist Congress, which in its 2020 edition will address technological solutions for the revival of tourism through digitization in 'post-Covid-19'. An edition to be held on October 15 and 16, and which was presented this morning in a telematic conference in which the mayor of the city, Toni Pérez; the president of Ametic, Pedro Mier; Enrique Martínez, president of Segittur; and the director of the Congress, Adolfo Borrero.

Under the title ‘Recovery and Transformation of Smart Tourist Destinations’, at the Digital Tourist 2020, success stories and technological proposals to adapt Tourism to the new situation generated by the health crisis will be analyzed.

The mayor has pointed out that "digitization is once again key", in this case to "avoid the collapse of tourism and achieve the reactivation of this tourism industry, the one most affected by the effects of Covid-19". Toni Pérez stressed that "this exceptional situation is conditioning our future a great deal" and therefore "measures are necessary to respond" to the current problem. In this sense, he remarked that Benidorm, as "epicenter destination of national tourist intelligence", has "technological solutions that we have been using and that are now going to be essential to tackle new ways of doing tourism in 'post-Covid' times "

Hence, Benidorm is already working on “adapting the strategy set out in the Master Plan for the Smart Tourist Destination (DTI) with actions that align us with health security and well-being; in short, to make the city a DTI + Insurance ”. Likewise, he assured that "technology is going to be essential in decision-making" and for the application of measures that guarantee health security, such as for the inspection or control of gauging.

For his part, the director of AMETIC has indicated that it is necessary to “innovate to distinguish ourselves from our competitors” in key aspects for recovery such as “health security”; and he has affirmed that Digital Tourist will put on the table the initiatives that, hand in hand with digital technology, the tourism industry will have at its disposal “at a critical moment” in which it is necessary to “redefine how the 'Post Covid' tourism ”.

In turn, the president of Segittur has insisted that "data collection and management" will allow "better decisions to be made" in order to face the current event; and added that "we have to put at the service of destinations, companies and tourism managers tools" that allow them not only to overcome the current situation but also to be "resilient", and recover as soon as possible from adverse or unforeseen circumstances.

Thus, in the two days of the Congress, organized by AMETIC with the collaboration of Benidorm City Council, innovative issues will be addressed such as: Economy of Data in the DTI; the new management of Heritage and Culture; the management of Mobility, Accessibility and Tourist flows; Smart tourism centers; financing tools for the recovery and transformation of the sector; Resilience of Smart Tourist Destinations; contactless technologies.

Digital Tourist 2020 also has the institutional support of the Generalitat Valenciana through Invat.tur, Alicante Provincial Council, Segittur State Society, Red.es, Network of Smart Tourist Destinations, Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI ), Network of Urban Initiatives (RIU) and Network of Cities of Science and Innovation (Red INNPULSO).

II Digital Tourist Awards and plenary session of DTI Network

During the Congress, Digital Tourist 2020 Awards ’will be presented, which are focused on emerging from crisis and on new tourism management. It is about rewarding the best solutions from companies, local entities and institutions that have excelled in the recovery of tourist destinations, in any of the following five categories:

Innovation in Tourism Offer: it will reward the destination that has stood out for the best reinvention of its tourism offer with intensive use of digital technology.

Tourism Flow Management: it will be granted to those who have the best destination application that allows the monitoring and control of safe tourist flows in a destination.

Health Safety Protocols: This is a specific award for the tourist establishment (museum, congress hall, concert hall ...) that has most effectively implemented health safety protocols and the implementation of "contactless" technologies.

Standardization: the best initiative that guarantees interoperability between platforms, systems, and devices using data sources of normalized semantics.

Economy of the Tourist Data: to the best management of the data by wealth of sources, treatment and disposition to the tourist ecosystem.

The jury for these awards will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel María Oliver and will be formed by the Mayor of Benidorm; the president of Segittur; the director of Smart Tourism of the Valencian Community, Mario Villar; the president of AMETIC Smart Cities Commission and director of the Congress, Adolfo Borrero; Marketing Director of MasterCard, Alejandro Banegas; the director of Orange Companies, Joaquín Colino; and Francisco Hortigüela, CEO of AMETIC.

In addition, as announced by the mayor, within the framework of Digital Tourist 2020, a plenary session of DTI Network will take place, consisting of 32 destinations and the Secretary of State for Tourism.