The digitisation of tourist destinations to improve and transform the relationship with visitors is the objective of a series of new projects worth nearly 95 million euros in total announced by Spain’s Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu.
Among the 46 beneficiaries nationwide are Malaga city hall and the provincial authority, the Diputación de Málaga. In fact, 28 of these projects will be in Andalucía. The subsidies will allow the institutions to invest in digital technologies to improve the management of destinations and the competitiveness of companies, as well as promoting collaboration between administrations.
Hereu announced at a forum on tourism organised by CEOE in Madrid that this aid will mean that destinations can develop digital solutions that allow them to link their management to the intelligent destination platform (PID) created by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism.
He explained that the purpose is twofold. On the one hand, to promote more digital and intelligent relations between tourists, businesses and residents in the destinations. On the other hand, to generate data that allows for more informed decision-making on challenges related to a more efficient and sustainable management of destinations.
More than 250 applications were submitted to this call, of which 46 projects have been selected to receive funding. Nearly 60% of the funding was allocated to town halls; 35% to provincial authorities and island councils; and 5.6% to single-province regions, with amounts allocated of 56.4 million, 33.2 million and 5.3 million respectively.
The minister pointed out that “these projects will be integrated into the PID platform, strengthening the common project that will serve all the other destinations in the intelligent network. This project aims to improve the balance between tourist and residential use of destinations, putting the resident at the centre”.
Hereu also took the opportunity to reflect on the tourism sector in Spain: “2024 has confirmed Spain as an international benchmark for the variety, quality and sustainability of its tourism offer and that it is on its way, in the absence of definitive data from the last few months, to a new record for spending and international tourist arrivals”.
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