Benidorm concludes a study of tourist flows that allows us to know how many people visit the city every day and where they come from

Benidorm City Council has completed the study of tourism that will allow us to know the real number of people who visit the city every day, where they come from and whether they arrived after landing at the Alicante-Elche provincial airport or did so by another route. This study, called 'Analysis of tourist flows', is a project included in the 'Benidorm DTI + Seguro' Destination Tourism Sustainability Plan, focused on analyzing the tourist activity and mobility of Benidorm in 2023 and which has been developed in collaboration with Aquatec, with an investment of 14,950 euros.

The mayor of the city, Toni Pérez; the councillor for Water Cycle, José Ramón González de Zárate, and other municipal technicians were the first to learn the first results of this analysis this Thursday. This is a snapshot of a specific year and “will serve as a starting point for something that is key and that we set ourselves as a challenge for the immediate future: measuring and analysing the evolution of these flows”, as highlighted by the mayor, who also expressed his conviction that, “without a doubt, it will be a turning point in terms of intelligent tourism management”.

For the preparation of this analysis, data from 2023 have been taken as it is the year of real tourist recovery after the pandemic caused by COVID-19. Among the tools used, telecommunications data have been used to analyse the mobility of people flows in Benidorm; telecommunications data have also been used to analyse tourist arrivals at Alicante-Elche Airport – which is the main access route to Benidorm for international tourism –; and, finally, data published by different organisations such as the INE, Turespaña, Frontur, Egatur or Hosbec.

Toni Pérez has highlighted that, with this report, “we are going to have a basis from which to be able to delve into the study and knowledge of aspects of tourism and our tourists that until now we had not been able to quantify due to a lack of data. Improving the management of the offer, adapting it to the typology of the tourist, and improving the sustainable management of the city itself, resulting in the quality of life of residents and visitors.”

Among them, for example, he has stated that “as a destination, we have always worked with occupancy data in regulated accommodation, but we were missing out on other very relevant aspects, such as the volume of overnight stays in the unregulated offer, the floating population flows related to second homes and the scope of those who visit the city but do not stay overnight there”, who in this analysis is defined as the term ‘excursionists’.

The first data provided today by those responsible for this 'Analysis of tourist flows' also highlight, for example, that the monthly average of people visiting Benidorm is more than 252,000 people or that in August the figure shoots up to more than 2.1 million visitors, double the annual average. Likewise, we know that on the busiest day of the summer, which in 2023 was August 12, the city can reach a peak of just over 365,000 people, including residents and the floating population.

Toni Pérez has defined the information provided by this analysis as "valuable", which also provides data on which areas tourists mostly move through based on their nationalities; the points in Benidorm with significant concentrations of second homes; etc. In short, "a whole range of data to plan better and to be more accurate when programming services and optimizing resources," said the mayor.

Finally, the mayor said that “in addition to opening a new window in the intelligent analysis of data, this study reaffirms the important volume of the floating population that Benidorm has during the 12 months of the year, underpinning our uniqueness as a tourist municipality and our historical demand for greater and better financing to be able to guarantee the quality of the services we provide to residents and tourists.”