Benidorm adds three children's amphibious chairs to accessible beach areas

Benidorm City Council has improved the city's accessible beach areas with the acquisition of three new amphibious chairs for users. Specifically, these three children's amphibious chairs represent an investment of €4,867.50. The chairs will be located at the city's three accessible beach areas: in La Cala, Parque de Elche, and Levante.

The City Council has been improving this service over the years, increasing the number of amphibious chairs, support and rescue personnel, equipment, and more. "And our commitment is to continue working towards accessibility and the elimination of architectural barriers on our beaches," said Mayor Toni Pérez during a visit to the accessible beach area in Parque de Elche, accompanied by Councillor for Beaches Mónica Gómez, where these new features were presented.

Thus, the improvement consisted of the addition of three amphibious chairs for children, adapted for bathing on the beaches, each of which has all the corresponding ISO certifications. Each of Benidorm's accessible beach spots will have one of these chairs.

Benidorm's accessible beach spots have very extended opening hours in the summer, from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. from June 1 to September 30, while in the winter period, the hours are from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. the rest of the year, except from January 15 to February 14, when they are closed.

Each of the spots has a series of elements that facilitate adapted bathing and staying in the corresponding facilities. Thus, at each station, in addition to the new child seats, there is an access ramp, a walkway connecting to the access ramp to the sea, an adapted changing room and an adapted restroom, amphibious chairs for adults, sets of amphibious crutches of different sizes, lifeguards as support staff for swimming, and buoys that delimit the bathing area. Likewise, all three areas have shaded areas and windbreaks.

Toni Pérez stated that accessible tourism "is not only the elimination of physical, sensory, or communication barriers, but also aims to ensure that tourist environments, products, and services can be enjoyed on equal terms by anyone with or without disabilities." Therefore, the mayor highlighted "the efforts we have been making for years to achieve this, which have resulted in numerous investments and actions in favor of accessibility."

The City Council and the concessionaire maintain "permanent" contact with users of the accessible beaches "to gather their suggestions for further improving the service, which already has very high ratings from the people and their families who use it, especially regarding the attention they receive from the staff at all three locations," Pérez added.

Users in summer

The satisfaction of this service's users is reflected in the increase in the number of people using it. Thus, in June, July, and August of last year, the number of bathers using this service was 8,684, which was more than 1,500 more than the previous year. Specifically, in June 2024, there were 2,840 users, in July 3,216, and in August 2,628. Regarding accessible beaches, La Cala registered 958 bathers in the three months, Levante reached 2,544, and Parque de Elche had the highest number with a total of 5,182 people.