DIGITAL TOURIST 2020

Benidorm will once again host the Digital Tourist Congress , which in its 2020 edition will address technological solutions for the reactivation of tourism through digitization in the 'post Covid-19' era.

An edition that will be held on October 15 and 16.

Under the title ' Recovery and Transformation of Smart Tourist Destinations', the Digital Tourist 2020 will analyze success stories and technological proposals to adapt Tourism to the new situation generated by the health crisis.

Digitization is once again key, in this case to avoid the collapse of Tourism and achieve the reactivation of this tourism industry, the most affected by the effects of Covid-19.

This exceptional situation is greatly conditioning the future and therefore measures are necessary to respond to the current problem.

In this sense, it should be noted that Benidorm, as the epicenter of national tourism intelligence, has technological solutions that the city has been using and that now will be essential to address new ways of doing tourism in 'post-Covid' times.

Hence, Benidorm is already working on adapting the strategy set out in the Smart Tourist Destination Master Plan (DTI) with actions that are aligned with health safety and well-being ; in short, in making the city a DTI + Insurance .

Likewise, it has ensured that technology will be essential in decision-making and in the application of measures that guarantee health security, such as for the inspection or control of gauges.

The director of AMETIC has indicated that it is necessary to innovate to distinguish ourselves from our competitors in key aspects for recovery such as health security ; and has stated that the Digital Tourist will put on the table the initiatives that, hand in hand with digital technology, the tourism industry will have at its disposal "at a critical moment" in which it is necessary to "redefine how the Tourism 'post Covid' ”.

In turn, the president of Segittur has insisted that the taking and management of data will allow better decisions to be made in order to face the current situation; And he added that we have to put at the service of destinations, companies and tourism managers tools that allow them not only to overcome the current situation but also to be resilient , and recover as soon as possible from adverse or supervening circumstances.

Thus, in the two days of the Congress, organized by AMETIC with the collaboration of the Benidorm City Council, innovative issues will be addressed such as: the Data Economy in DTIs; the new management of Heritage and Culture; the management of Mobility, Accessibility and Tourist flows; the Tourist Intelligence centers; financing tools for the recovery and transformation of the sector; DTI Resilience; contact-less technologies.

Digital Tourist 2020 also has the institutional support of the Generalitat Valenciana through Invat.tur, the Alicante Provincial Council, the Segittur State Society, Red.es, the Network of Smart Tourist Destinations, the Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI ), the Network of Urban Initiatives (RIU) and the Network of Cities of Science and Innovation (Red INNPULSO).

II Digital Tourist Awards and plenary session of the DTI Network

During the Congress, the 'Digital Tourist 2020 Awards' will be awarded, which are focused on the exit from the crisis and the new management of tourism. It is about awarding the best solutions from companies, local entities and institutions, which have excelled in the recovery of tourist destinations, in one of the following five categories:

• Tourism Offer Innovation: will reward the destination that has stood out for the best reinvention of its tourist offer with intensive use of digital technology.
• Tourist Flow Management : it will be granted to whoever has the best destination application that allows the monitoring and control of the safe flows of tourists in a destination.
• Health Security Protocols : this is a specific award for that tourist establishment (museum, conference center, concert hall ...) that has more effectively implemented health security protocols and implementation of “contact-less” technologies.
• Standardization : to the best initiative that guarantees interoperability between platforms, systems, and devices using data sources with standardized semantics.
• Tourism Data Economy : for the best management of data due to the richness of sources, treatment and disposition of the tourism ecosystem.

The jury for these awards will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel María Oliver and will be made up of the Mayor of Benidorm; the president of Segittur; the Director of Tourist Intelligence of the Valencian Community, Mario Villar; the president of the AMETIC Smart Cities Commission and director of the Congress, Adolfo Borrero; MasterCard's Marketing Director, Alejandro Banegas; the director of Orange Companies, Joaquín Colino; and Francisco Hortigüela, general director of AMETIC.

In addition, within the framework of Digital Tourist 2020, a plenary session of the DTI Network will take place, made up of 32 destinations and the Secretary of State for Tourism.

(Source: VisitBenidorm.es)