The President of Segittur, Enrique Martínez Marín, this morning presented the Mayor of the city with the award that accredits the city as a quality, innovative, accessible and sustainable destination.
Gijón/Xixón, 21 December 2020 - Gijón/Xixón has become an "innovative tourist destination, consolidated on a state-of-the-art technological infrastructure, which guarantees the sustainable development of the tourist territory, accessible to all, which facilitates the interaction and integration of visitors with the environment and increases the quality of their experience in the destination and improves the quality of life of its residents".
This was confirmed this morning at a ceremony held at Gijón/Xixón Town Hall, where the President of Segittur, Enrique Martínez Marín, presented the Mayor of Gijón/Xixón, Ana González, with the badge that positions the Asturian city as an Intelligent Tourist Destination.
"The awarding of this seal of excellence in tourism management substantially reinforces everything we want to promote, project and improve a model on which we have been working conscientiously for many years", explained Ana González, the Mayoress of Gijón/Xixón. "It comes at the most opportune moment, in a particularly complicated year for the sector and when we most need to reinforce confidence in our own possibilities, under the enormous impact of the social and health crisis we are experiencing," she concluded.
The conversion of Gijón/Xixón into an Intelligent Tourist Destination means an update of the destination based on five strategic pillars, such as governance, innovation, technology, sustainability and accessibility.
The President of SEGITTUR, Enrique Martínez Marín, congratulated Gijón/Xixón for its effort and dedication and stressed that "being an intelligent tourist destination means a revaluation that contributes to improving competitiveness, as well as a boost to the sustainable development of tourism, while enriching all citizens".
The Secretary of State for Tourism is leading the DTI project, a pioneer at international level, promoted and managed by SEGITTUR, whose objective is to implement a new model for improving the competitiveness and development of tourism based on governance and co-responsibility in tourism.
During the first half of the year, Segittur's technicians held meetings with the municipal departments of Tourism, Culture and Museums, Environment, IT, Innovation, Web Communication, EMULSA, Transparency, Sports, Education, Maintenance and Works, Social Services, Economic Promotion and Employment. They also met with representatives of the hotel and catering sector, the Smart City Gijón/Xixón Chair and the Gijón/Xixón Sustainability Chair, the Palacio de Congresos, and other business associations and municipal departments.
After the analysis, the Segittur technicians concluded that Gijón/Xixón exceeded compliance with the DTI methodology. The city obtained a score of over 82%. The sustainability axis is where the best results have been achieved, followed by technology, governance, innovation and accessibility.
Together with the diagnostic report carried out by SEGITTUR, an action plan was delivered, proposing a series of actions to improve the management of the destination within the framework of the DTI methodology, including the creation of an intelligent tourist destination management system, the development of a tourism entrepreneurship programme, the design of a digital tourist information office, as well as the implementation of a sustainability desk in tourism; and the promotion of accessibility in the private tourism sector.
The transformation into an Intelligent Tourist Destination implies the revaluation of the destination through innovation and technology, and this is the fundamental result:
- An increase in competitiveness, thanks to the better use of its tourism resources and the identification and creation of others.
- An improvement in the efficiency of the production and commercialisation processes.
- An impulse to the sustainable development of the destination in its three aspects: environmental, economic and socio-cultural.
- An improvement in the quality of the visitors' stay and the quality of life of the residents.
- To make the tourism strategy the basis for the economic dynamisation of the territory, guaranteeing its positive effects in the long term.
About the DTI network
The Intelligent Tourist Destination Network was established in February 2019 and currently has over 230 members, including Gijón/Xixón. The objective of the Network is to foster public-public and public-private collaboration in promoting the intelligent tourism destination model, as well as to help ensure Spain's leadership in tourism intelligence.
The incorporation of the city into the network is a major step forward in the consolidation of Gijón/Xixón as a quality tourist destination and attractive to new tourists. In addition, it will allow us to share information and work together with other destinations, institutions and companies in the development of digitalization and sustainability projects
The support and development of the DTI Network is one of the measures envisaged in the Plan to Promote the Tourism Sector presented in June of this year by the Spanish Government.
