The new tourist data and its role in the destinations are the focus of a new edition of the Digital Tourist in Benidorm

The new tourist data and its role in the configuration and management of destinations will focus the debate, analysis, and study of a new edition of Digital Tourist for two days, a congress organized by Ametic, the employers' association of the Spanish digital industry, with the collaboration of Benidorm City Council and that during today's and tomorrow's sessions are held in the assembly hall of the town hall building.

The mayor, Toni Pérez; together with the regional Secretary of Tourism, Francesc Colomer; and the president of Ametic, Pedro Mier, opened the congress this morning, which will have eleven discussion tables and prominent speakers and which will host a technical meeting of the Smart Cities Network (RECI) focused on the Smart Platform for Tourist Destinations, of a national character and that is going to be implemented in Benidorm.

During the opening, the mayor welcomed all those attending the congress and stated that "everything seen and experienced in this Digital Tourist since its start", in 2018, "falls short with what we are going to experience in this edition", which will address issues such as tourist intelligence -of which Benidorm is a pioneer, having been the first certified DTI in the world-, destination loyalty, new European fund programs linked to tourist activity, sustainability and climate change or artificial intelligence and its impact on the sector.

As the president of Ametic pointed out, the program of the two days was designed taking into account "the enormous interest that there is in the digital transformation" and "the coordinated effort to maintain the prestige of Spain" in tourism.

For his part, Colomer stressed that tourism "is not a denier of climate change" and "is not technophobe", but is open to technology and its application to improve management and the tourist experience. In his speech, he stated that Benidorm is a "great social laboratory and Smart Tourism" and a "spearhead" in the transformation and digital revolution applied to tourism.

After the opening ceremony, the first of the planned presentations were held, by Alberto Granados, president of Microsoft Spain, which revolved around the new paradigm of smart tourism. Next, Principado de Asturias invited to this edition of Digital Tourist was recognized.

Ahead, in a day with seven discussion tables, in the first of which the president of Segittur, Enrique Martínez, has announced that it is in the final phase of drafting the specifications of the Smart Destination Platform that will have headquarters in Benidorm, as announced in the 2021 Digital Tourist by the Minister of Tourism, Reyes Maroto. Martínez advanced that "in June we are going to remove the central office" of this platform, for which 50 million euros have been reserved and which will serve the cities and destinations of the Spanish DTI network.

Today's activity will close at 6:30 p.m. with the conclusions of this first day of Digital Tourist and with the award ceremony for this edition.

The Smart Platform of Destinations, present at the loyalty table with the manager of Visit Benidorm

The Smart Destination Platform also took over part of the debate of the third of the morning tables, the one dedicated to loyalty in tourist destinations and in which Benidorm has been very present at the hands of the manager of Visit Benidorm, Leire Bilbao.

Bilbao affirmed that this platform "is going to help a lot" to the destinations, both to those of us who "were on a path" already well advanced in the collection and analysis of the data as is the case of Benidorm, as well as to those who "want to get underway". The Visit Benidorm manager stressed the "need to have data" when planning the management and promotion of a destination.

In this sense, he recalled that Benidorm "has been working on tourist intelligence since 2015" and has been certified with the corresponding UNE standard since 2018. An example of this commitment to intelligence, thanks to Hosbec, the destination was a pioneer in "the data sharing” of reservations through the Biontrend project, which was joined by 80 hotels that obtain “a competitive improvement”.

During the table, Bilbao valued "the management of the territory" that Benidorm did in the 50s by betting on a high-rise urban model that is maintained today and that has led to "very efficient management of resources", in a municipal term with a protected area of more than 60%.