BeCiTi launches its first Open Innovation Challenge aimed at advancing the measurement and certification of the water footprint across the hospitality sector

BeCiTi, the Smart Tourism Innovation Centre, an initiative promoted by the Benidorm City Council, is launching a new open innovation challenge with the support of the Veolia Group and HOSBEC. The objective is clear: to identify and validate solutions that will enable progress towards water footprint certification in hotel establishments, using objective, automated, and comparable indicators, thereby reinforcing the sustainability of the destination and the operational efficiency of the tourism sector.

The challenge seeks technological solutions capable of measuring, analysing, and managing water consumption in tourist facilities—especially hotels with swimming pools, gardens, and large infrastructures—from a comprehensive water footprint perspective, with a verifiable data approach that facilitates both business decision-making and the definition of public policies geared towards water resilience.

Proposals must address at least one of the technological sub-challenges defined in the call for proposals, which cover different needs when managing the water footprint in hotel establishments. Among the sub-challenges are, for example, the dynamic inventory of a hotel's water network, the measurement and optimisation of consumption with granularity by zone and use, water safety in facilities such as swimming pools, spas, or intermittent circuits, and the characterisation and reduction of wastewater discharges. All these sub-challenges are geared towards obtaining a precise, traceable, and scalable measurement of the water footprint.

The Councillor for Innovation, Aída García Mayor, explained that “this call for proposals is not just a search for ideas: it is a real-world validation opportunity because the selected solutions will be able to be developed and tested through proof-of-concept (PoC) projects in real-world operational environments, in Benidorm hotels.” This will allow for the verification of their technical feasibility and their real-world impact.

García Mayor further elaborated that, in addition, participation in the challenge “provides the opportunity to actively participate in the initial steps of defining a future water footprint certification, contributing technological solutions that enable the objective measurement of key indicators.” BeCiti will work to offer the winners of the challenge opportunities for collaboration and business, connection with leading entities and sector projection, as well as visibility and positioning, through dissemination actions and participation in events of the innovation centre ecosystem.

How and when to submit proposals

Companies, entrepreneurs, researchers, and knowledge agents can participate in this challenge by submitting solutions aligned with the sub-challenges described in the guidelines and joining a results-oriented program to test, validate, and scale solutions with a real impact in Benidorm.

The submission period opens on February 12, 2026, and closes on March 6, 2026, at 2:00 PM. Applications must be submitted electronically via the online form available on the BeCiTi website (https://beciti.es/retos-beciti/).

This challenge, related to water management, is the first of several planned by BeCiTi, a centre created with Next Generation EU funding within the framework of the Tourism Sustainability in Destinations Plan, part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan financed by the European Union.