Toni Pérez defends in Melilla the sustainability of the Benidorm model and tourist activity

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, has once again expressed his defense of tourist activity and, specifically, the sustainability of the Benidorm model. He did so during the III City of Melilla Tourism Forum, where he attended as a speaker. There, he highlighted that Benidorm was “the first municipality in Spain that planned a General Plan when there was no land law. A plan, in short, to dedicate oneself to tourism, because then a mayor saw the potential of that activity.”

At this point, the first mayor highlighted the "sustainable" nature of the tourism industry, which also "does not relocate and redistributes wealth as few others do."

In his defense of the Benidorm model, the mayor explained to the audience that the city “reinvents itself every day” and stated that compared to other destinations that pursue that objective, “in the 70s Benidorm was no longer seasonal; “We had to ask the hotels not to close.” Pérez lamented that “there are still those who have a misconception about Benidorm, despite having never been there.”

On the contrary, he stated that "there is a Benidorm for everyone because people want to have fun and be able to choose" and he asked, as an example, "if there would be someone who would want to go to the final of a football World Cup to be only in the stadium.” But this diversity of offer, according to Pérez, “is only a small product within the great destination that is Benidorm. We work with many tourist products in a single destination, we dedicate a lot of effort to it and it is a great complement to what we are, a sun and beach vacation destination, with a 55% national market and a lot of family tourism."

At that time, Toni Pérez explained with data why the Benidorm model is the most sustainable. “In 25 years we have reduced drinking water consumption by 18% despite having increased overnight stays by 40%. That is sustainability. In addition, we have a utilization of the water network greater than 96%. "We have also broken records for glass recycling and savings in energy consumption." “All of this is part of a city strategy,” he added, before remembering that “we have two of the five best urban beaches in the world, with 250,000 square meters of sand. 60% of the land is protected, we are a vertical city and the third on the peninsula with the most tourist overnight stays per year. 16.2 million last year.”

In his speech the mayor also emphasized that “in Benidorm, the city is the destination, the great attraction”, but that this has not been an obstacle “for it having to continue reinventing itself; and now we do it through accessibility, innovation, technology, mobility, and sustainability.”

Toni Pérez also highlighted how Benidorm has managed to improve its attractiveness through the creation of two new products, the BenidormFest and audiovisual tourism. “The first is a mega-promotional tool. We are a great reference for the LGTBI community. We must be aware that tourism is about opening minds, mixing, and understanding others. That is why this industry cannot be unprotected. And the other product is audiovisual tourism, which has such a presence that it can make a destination have a very important story on the screens.” Thus, he has revealed that last year the city hosted more than 118 productions and 364 days of filming.

Finally, the first mayor presented some data about Benidorm, such as that it has 70,000 registered inhabitants, but provides service to 140,000 every day. “And in August, according to the calculations of consumption of water, garbage, electricity, etc. We were about 480,000,” he noted. Likewise, he provided a revealing piece of information about sustainability: “Thirteen Benidorms would free the entire Spanish coastline from any building,” he concluded.

Toni Pérez shared thematic table 4 of this forum, which has been about 'Experiences on tourism and society' with the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados; that of Alaior (Menorca), José Luis Benejam; and the director of Fitur LGTB+ and co-founder of Diversity Consulting International, Juan Pedro Tudela. A table that was moderated by Antonia Ruiz Moreno, from the University of Granada.