DTI Benidorm delves into regenerative and circular tourism and AI with the ‘III Surfea DTI Bootcamp’

A large group of participants are students from the European University of Valencia and come from Spain, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, Morocco, Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria and Germany.

On behalf of the Mayor of Benidorm, the Councillor for the Presidency, Juan Díaz, welcomed them, and after the opening presentation on regenerative and circular tourism by Dr Fernando Molina, the first of the challenges to be developed revolved around the experiences offered by experts in this field, with Professor Isabel María Torres opening the cycle by focusing on the topic.

The Councillor for Beaches and the Environment, Mónica Gómez, presented the technical work carried out on the beaches up to the development of Smart Beaches, with Red.es, and the Sustainable Tourism Plans in the destination that have had an impact on them with specific programmes for energy saving and efficiency, coastal protection, reuse and urban art, cleaning and recycling and the innovation of the Score resilience project.

Aida Marín, head of quality at Hosbec, has presented the initiatives of the employers' association, emphasising the Bioscore projects - environmental policy, sustainability and corporate social responsibility - and Greenhost, involving tourists in their carbon footprint.

Challenge I was completed by the CEO of Visit Benidorm, Leire Bilbao, explaining the entire operation involved in the tourism marketing of a DTI such as Benidorm, focusing on action models and market niches, providing professionals and students with a wide range of AI tools to be able to develop their tasks with practical examples such as those applied daily by Visit Benidorm.

The morning we ended with work visits to the Smart Office of Benidorm City Council, led by Celia Romero, CEO of Smart Tourism, and Dinapsis Lab of Hidraqua to learn about the work philosophy, network monitoring and Urban Green Data indicators.

Challenge II will culminate this afternoon with a tour of the Smart Tourism System at the Ivattur headquarters, with Olivia Estrella, Director General of Innovation, and experts from iUrban, Libelium, Marketing and Security, and Smart Tourism, where innovations applied to DTI will be discussed, with special emphasis on the use of technologies such as sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for decision-making, ending the day with a working session of conclusions and the closing of this third Surfea DTI Bootcamp, which will be led by the Councillor for Innovation, Aida García Mayor, who was already attending the presentations of Challenge I this morning.