Benidorm proposes to His Majesty The King and the Minister a tourist EDUSI and recalls the need for a Special Tourism Protection Plan

His Majesty the King has maintained this morning a contact with the municipalities that are members of the Network of Smart Tourist Destinations in Spain, moments before the development of the Second Plenary Commission of DTI Network, which was attended by the President of Segittur, Enrique Martínez Marín, the president of AMETIC and the management of Amadeus and Red.es, together with the Minister Reyes Maroto and the Secretary of State for Tourism.

The only two proposals for the working session have been presented from Benidorm: the development of a Strategy financed with European funds, such as EDUSI, which helps to recover the power of the Spanish tourism sector, so affected by the incidence of the pandemic, and the already requested Special Tourism Protection Plan.

In his speech, the mayor of Benidorm has called for the implementation of “a possible tourist EDUSI” promoted by DTI Network, “where Tourism and Technology go together, to make Spain a benchmark in the application of the technology aimed at services ”. And he pointed out that "among the strengths of this strategy is the integral nature of generating social employment policies, recovery of areas, infrastructures and technological advances that will make us much stronger."

Toni Pérez proposed that this EDUSI-type initiative be promoted “by the Ministry of Tourism, which is Commerce and Industry, and to which should be added, in that Sustainable Development Goal number 17, in an alliance, municipalism and the DTI Network together with the Ministries of Development and EcologicalTransition ”. "It is adding to the network," said Pérez.

Likewise, the mayor of Benidorm recalled the need to support the demands of the sector already set out in the measures proposed by Benidorm and the Alliance of Tourist Municipalities. In this sense and on the Special Protection Plan, Toni Pérez has pointed out that “Tourism has always been the driving industry in the worst crisis in Spain, which never asked anyone for help, and which is based on the industry of people who they serve people and they have been very touched on their waterline. ”

In this session, the president of FEMP, Abel Caballero, the mayors of: Alcalá de Henares, Javier Rodríguez; Avilés, Maribel Monteserín; Calviá, Alfonso Rodríguez; Juan Manuel Rodríguez, Conil; San Sebastián, Eneko Goya; and Salou, Pere Granados; the president of the Provincial Council of Zamora, Ángeles Armisén; the CEO of Red.es, David Cierco; the director of Industrial Affairs of Amadeus, Juan Jesús García; and the president of Ametic, Pedro Mier, who highlighted the importance in this set of initiatives of the Digital Tourist congress, which is held in Benidorm.

The municipalities indicated, in their speeches, their proposals in favor of recovering the tourist's trust and the collaboration with the DTI Network and the Ministry of Tourism.

The Minister Reyes Maroto, for her part, indicated the intention to make DTI Network grow, and its value for being unique in the world. She announced the recovery of national mobility from June 22 and international mobility from July 1.

After a round of questions that King Felipe VI asked the participants in the meeting, which was followed by two hundred professional guests from the sector, His Majesty closed the meeting supporting  DTI Network due to its relevance to the tremendous challenge posed by the recovery of the sector and the tourism industry, encouraging to respond to challenges with innovation and technology, the main arguments of the Spanish Network of Smart Tourist Destinations.