The transformation of Arona as an Intelligent Tourist Destination (Smart Destination) has taken a giant step forward with the tendering of the project by the public entity Red.es, dependent on the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of the Government of Spain, with an investment maximum of 5,672,939 euros.
This initiative of the City Council, promoted by the Modernization and Tourism areas, led by councilors Leopoldo Díaz Oda and José Alberto Delgado, respectively, will consolidate the municipality as an innovative tourist destination, on a cutting-edge technological infrastructure, which will guarantee the Sustainable development of the tourist territory, accessible to all, will facilitate the interaction and integration of the visitor with the environment, and will increase the quality of their experience, while improving the quality of life of the neighbors.
For the Southern Corporation, providing the municipality with tools to evolve towards the concept of an accessible, sustainable and intelligent tourist destination, as a way of integrating people, the economy, mobility and the environment, is an ambitious strategy for the future. .
To better understand what this digital transformation consists of, it is convenient to cite some examples of the most interesting actions that will be carried out in Arona. One of them is the deployment of an Intelligent Tourist Destination Platform, a unique transversal system that will provide intelligence to the municipality, improving the tourist experience, promoting coexistence between residents and visitors, and offering the manager a comprehensive vision of the territory to facilitate decision-making and the identification of business opportunities aimed at increasing the efficiency, sustainability and quality of services.
Another is the installation of 15 meteorological stations that will allow to know the meteorological conditions of the municipality, the levels of pollution or noise, collecting data that will allow generating new information services to citizens and tourists, and with which actions can be configured in case of alerts (sending emails, SMS or some similar mechanism that allows warning and evaluating alerts).
On the other hand, a smart parking system is envisaged, which facilitates the management of spaces, thus promoting a reduction in traffic density, driving times and route optimization. Panels indicating the number of total places and the number of those that are available will be installed. This system will also be integrated into the future tourist mobile application I Love Arona, which will be developed within the Smart Destination initiative itself.
The app will also provide tourists and citizens with information about hotels, culture and leisure, routes, addresses and places of interest, as well as different utilities that they can make or visit during their stay in the municipality.
Other advances that will be implemented in Arona will be the flow control system; the measurement of the tourist experience; an accessibility manager in the urban area, or a virtual tourist agent, the Smart Planner, capable of proposing changes in routes or plans based on individual preferences, the contextual situation and geolocation.
All these services will greatly improve the experience of tourists and also that of neighbors with their municipality.
The mayor, José Julián Mena, explains that “the tender for the project allows us to take another step towards adapting Arona as a smart tourist destination, reinforcing its competitiveness and making it one of the most technologically advanced destinations in the country.”
For Leopoldo Díaz Oda, “this digital transformation of Arona is accompanied by technological advances that will provide a substantial improvement in the quality of life of citizens. This initiative is not a closed project. With the experience that the implementation of Arona Smart Destination will give us, a range of future actions will be opened, not only with a tourist focus, in other areas of the municipality ”.
Finally, José Alberto Delgado underlines that “the digital reconversion of the destination to meet the needs of tourists in the 21st century is essential for Arona to continue being a pioneer municipality in the Canary Islands, Spain and Europe.”
