The mayor places the technological innovation as the key for the reconversion of pioneer destinations

Benidorm participates in Torremolinos in the 1st Strategic Conference organized by the Alliance of Tourist Municipalities

Customize the product and make of the city element of attraction, challenges for the municipalities leading sun and beach

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, has assured that technological innovation is key for the reconversion of the pioneer tourist destinations of sun and beach. Pérez has moved this idea in the First Strategic Day for Pioneer Tourist Destinations, organized by the Alliance of Tourist Municipalities, of which Benidorm forms part next to Adeje, Arona, Calviá, Lloret de Mar, Salou, San Bartolomé de Tirajana and Torremolinos; destinations that total 50 million overnight stays per year, of which 11.5 million correspond to Benidorm.

In addition to "to give visibility to our demands," this day of debate and study are addressing the common problems facing the municipalities of sun and beach, without forgetting possible solutions.

In this 1st Strategic Conference, which is being held in the Torremolinos Congress Center, "200 national and international experts" are participating. Of these, around twenty take part in the four panels and presentations in which this day has been divided, which throughout the morning has focused on the Tourism and Innovation Offer in Tourist Destinations and Urban Architecture as scenario of a new tourist model. In the afternoon, it is the turn of Communication and Tourism Creativity and Shopping Tourism: the new challenge of commerce in the pioneer destinations.

In the opening ceremony, the mayor said that the pioneer destinations "are already advancing on the path set by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the Government of Spain: accessibility, innovation, technology and sustainability." These four concepts "are the axes that will allow us to reposition and reconvert our destinies".

In the forum, which has also hosted the president of Hosbec, Toni Mayor, Pérez has exposed the bet that Benidorm has made to "become the first intelligent tourist destination", and that is moving in the right way having "passed the test of the Standard UNE 178501 that regulates the Management System of the Intelligent Tourist Destinations ". In this regard, it has had the effect that "we have the obligation to make a hyperconnected traveler get the best return from his stay, living an almost a la carte experience", and to achieve this is the tourist intelligence.

As the third peninsular destination in hotel stays after Madrid and Barcelona, ​​the mayor of Benidorm has stressed that, above individual steps in the application of new technologies or measures of sustainability and accessibility, what unites the municipalities of the alliance is "the concern to reconvert us ".

Customize the tourist product

During the lectures and panels of the morning it has become clear that, besides innovating technologically, you have to: personalize the tourist product, segment the offer and surprise the traveler; diversify the product to become a 'unique reference mark'; planning urban development with medium and long-term vision to give value to the concept of city; to bet for the quality and the excellence of the destination in services and infrastructures more than in breaking records in number of tourists and overnight stays; and advance and evolve towards the concept of 'smart-city'.

These are, among others, the most immediate challenges facing the leading tourist destinations in Spain's 'sun and beach' segment if they are to reinvent themselves and face with guarantees a globalized market and growing competitiveness. This was evident in the first sessions of the morning of the First Strategic Day for Pioneer Tourist Destinations, which brings together all day today in the Palace of Congresses of Torremolinos to the mayors of the eight leading cities of the tourism of the sun and beaches in Spain, and 17 experts and multidisciplinary professionals who discuss the formulas to make their tourism model evolve and qualify as destinations.

Important meeting

The mayor of Torremolinos, José Ortiz, the promoter of this first day and host of the forum, referred in his opening speech to this meeting as "a relevant and very important event for all those who manage the pioneer municipalities of tourism in our country ". Ortiz has emphasized that, without distinction of geographical location and political sign of municipal governments in which all members of the alliance "share the same challenges and the same needs" and hence the constitution of this forum to make a common analysis of the needs they have as destinations after, in many cases up to 60 years of success, "reinvent" and "innovate" in their common goal of "becoming destinations of excellence".

"In a market marked by globalization and increasing competitiveness we have the challenge of offering added values ​​to the tourist," he said, and in this context has appealed to the regional and national administrations, also present at the opening ceremony, to support with tools the challenges and challenges we must address in order to remain competitive and attractive. " "We are cities that throughout the year, especially in summer, we double and even triple the sample population and we have to dimension our public services to that reality and the standards of quality and demand demanded by the tourism sector and the tourist itself", has claimed, a voice that will also be sent to the European Union because it is a municipality, Torremolinos, where 20 percent of the resident population is from European third countries.

Open new ways

In their respective interventions, the mayors of the different municipalities participating in the day have exposed the tourist reality of their cities. The first mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez, has emphasized the distinctive feature of the tourism offer of this destination, based on the five-star and five-star luxury class, and the concern that has as a member of the Alliance for "opening new paths and find answers "to the future challenges that should be marked as a destination of 'sun and beach'.

The mayor of Arona, Julián Mena, which has 40,000 hotel beds, and in 2016 received 1.5 million tourists and 6.5 million overnight stays, has emphasized the objective of the alliance and this first day as "an appointment reflection and common commitment to where we want to tend. "

Positive lobby

The first mayor of Calvià, Alfonso Rodríguez, has alluded to the interest and vocation of this Balearic destination for also evolving its tourism model and "continue to share the national tourism leadership as a source of opportunities for the neighbors." His colleague from Lloret de Mar, Jaume Dulsat, has referred to the process of hotel conversion in which this city is immersed, and to the commitment to congress tourism and MICE and sports incentives as complementary to the segment of sun and beaches. Dulsat has called the alliance "positive lobby of the sun and beach".

In his speech, Mayor Salou, Pere Granados, also raised the common claim of the alliance in relation to the lack of resources and economic support by the State to tourist municipalities that make them financially viable the maintenance of public services which have to support the town councils to attend to its floating population. "The administrations do not reflect what we generate of benefit for the national GDP, not only by tourist income but also by the internal exports that generates the tourist activity" in multiple subsidiary sectors.

Finally, the mayor of San Bartolomé de Tirajana referred to the forum as "an opportunity to take on our challenges and increase our competitiveness" as destinations. "A destination that has worked for the last 50 years is a destination that works and we want to continue to do so," he said, focusing on the improvements to be implemented that maintain their level of future competitiveness.

Sun and beach, base of the complementary offer

The General Deputy Director of Tourism Development and Sustainability of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Digital Agenda, Tatiana Martínez Ramos de Iruela; and the General Secretary of Tourism of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Susana Ibáñez, attended the opening ceremony of this First Strategic Day for Pioneer Destinations. Martínez Ramos has referred to the constitution of the Alliance of Tourist Municipalities as "a great initiative and opportunity that puts in value a fundamental resource of tourism in Spain, as is the segment of sun and beach." "We have the challenge of adapting the supply to the current demand so we have to renew ourselves, reinvent ourselves, specialize and maintain quality," he said. He also said that "we are in the third generation of tourism, which is the search for experiences on the part of the tourist", after which he has winked at the members of the alliance announcing the study of a public aid channel to the municipalities of mature destinations, complementary to the lines it maintains open with the private sector.

This commitment of support has come from the hand of the Secretary General of Tourism of the Junta de Andalucía. "The Junta de Andalucía is well aware of the importance of a tourist town, of which it is and represents. It is not a simple label and its demands have to be addressed, "Ibáñez announced.

Future vision

The first paper of the day has revolved around the 'Tourist Offer and Innovation in Pioneer Destinations'. The executive vice president and CEO of Meliá Hotels International, Gabriel Escarrer, has appealed to the mayors to act with "vision of future" in a global context in which "the sun and beach is much, but not enough" and in that the habits of consumption and the customer's own profile has changed.

Escarrer has called for tourism destinations to resort to the segmentation of their tourism products. "We must hyper-customize and adapt the product to each customer," he has defended, starting from the necessary collaboration between the public and private sector. "The search for experiences by the tourist is not limited to the hotel," he called attention, "but also seeks the environment" in which it is located. The vice president of Meliá Hotels International has emphasized the direct intervention of the level of public infrastructures and the attraction of urban development in the valuation or devaluation of a destination.

At the subsequent roundtable discussion attended by Pedro Hidalgo, international expert in Training of Human Resources and Training in the Kempiski Group; Juan Carlos San Juan, CEO of Casual Hotels; Ian Livesey, head of TUI Destination Services in Spain; and Tatiana Martínez, Secretary of State for Tourism of the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda; emphasis has been placed on the need for tourist councils to receive additional financial contributions to recondition their cities, planning urban treatments, implementing digital intelligence, enhancing the human capital of the tourism sector, customization of the product and destination as key elements to reconvert destinations.