Using Location Intelligence to return to Valencian beaches

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the tourism industry, particularly in Spain which last year was the second most visited country in the world with spending exceeding €92.2 billion.

With Spain and other countries now easing out of lockdown, the industry is cautiously rebuilding and tourists are eager to enjoy a vacation following months of confinement. In order to achieve this safely and avoid the reinstatement of local lockdowns due to a rebound of cases, Location Intelligence can be used alongside other technologies to ensure health and safety and avoid overcrowding.

Returning to the Beach

Located along the Mediterranean coast on the east side of the Iberian peninsula, the Valencia region in Spain is one of the most popular destinations for both local and international tourists and during the de-escalation phase is currently receiving the highest number of visitors. With over 340 beaches, the Generalitat Valenciana, government of the autonomous region, identified the need to provide visitors with a tool, available on their mobile devices, displaying beach capacity.

70% of the coast of the Valencian Community is a beach or cove - we must ensure that visitors can go safely after the coronavirus health crisis to our extraordinary beaches
Ximo Puig - President of the Generalitat Valenciana

The General Directorate of Information Technology and Telecommunications and the the association for Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society, along with the department for the Advancement of Digital Society made this project happen, proposing to create a web app to meet this need and control the capacity of beaches and bathing areas within Valencia.

In order to ensure maximum levels of safety for visitors to the region for the remainder of the vacation period the web app was developed in record time through a collaboration between Play&go, dotGIS, and CARTO.

Zonas de Bany CV

The “Zonas de Bany CV” tool geolocates the 340 beaches on the coast of the Valencian Community, as well as inland bathing areas, providing relevant and up-to-date information enabling visitors to safely enjoy and discover new areas.

When clicking or tapping specific areas the following information is displayed:

• Daily capacity status
  
  This is indicated, with a simple color code similar to those of beach flags, from low (green), medium (yellow) or full capacity (red), as well as if there is no data (white) or if it is closed (black). This information is updated throughout the day by means of a manual data collection system, in which managers of each beach can indicate the capacity status to be displayed in real time.


• Characteristics
  
  Municipality to which the beach belongs, if it has a blue flag, length, width, type of sand, degrees of urbanization, as well as whether it has accessibility and parking services and a link to more information on that area on the Ministry's Ecological Transition website, from where this information is gathered.


• Weather forecast
  
  For the next two days, including cloud coverage, wind, waves, maximum temperature, heat index, water temperature and maximum UV index, all directly from the official website of the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET).


• Place reservation
  
  In the event that the swimming area has a place reservation or tourist website, it will also be shown with two buttons to access directly.

With this tool, one of the essential aspects of the post COVID-19 era is taken care of by giving increased security and peace of mind to tourists, encouraging them to return to beaches, and for the Valencian Community to position itself as one of the leading worldwide tourist destinations.

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