AMETIC has held the ninth edition of Digital Tourist 2026 in Benidorm, the leading congress in Spain on smart tourism organized by AMETIC. During two days held on May 7 and 8, the forum debates how technology can make Spanish tourism more competitive, sustainable and intelligent, the country’s leading economic sector with nearly 100 million international visitors per year.
This edition is celebrated under the motto “Smart DMO: Infrastructure, data and intelligence to compete”, and focuses on how the organizations that manage tourist destinations (from a tourism department to a regional agency) can take advantage of data and artificial intelligence to make better decisions and anticipate demand.
The opening ceremony was chaired by Francisco Hortigüela, president of AMETIC, and had the participation of José de la Uz, president of the RECI (the Spanish Network of Smart Cities); Enrique Martínez, president of SEGITTUR (the state technological tourism society); José Manuel Camarero, regional secretary of Tourism of the Valencian Community; and Antonio Pérez, mayor of Benidorm and president of the Alicante Provincial Council.
Leadership in technology applied to tourism
In his opening speech, Hortigüela first pointed out that “Spain must not only be a leader in tourism, it must also be a leader in technology applied to tourism. We have the talent, the knowledge and the companies capable of developing advanced solutions in AI, data analytics, cybersecurity or digital platforms. And we have a reference market where we can validate, scale and export these solutions.”
The second idea has revolved around the Intelligent Destinations Platform (PID), a digital public infrastructure promoted by the Government that Hortigüela has described as “country infrastructure.” The PID allows municipalities to integrate and share tourism data (influx, demand, mobility, sustainability) to better manage their destinations. It currently serves more than 600 municipalities integrated into the Network of Smart Tourist Destinations: “It represents a lever capable of inducing modernity, efficiency and cohesion throughout the Spanish tourism sector.”
Hortigüela has also supported the birth of the Urban Destinations Network, a cooperative initiative for cities to share solutions to common challenges such as the management of massive tourist flows or sustainability.
Technology for decision making
For his part, José de la Uz, president of RECI, has highlighted that: “Tourism success is no longer simply measured in the number of visitors. We must ensure that this growth is compatible with the quality of life of the neighbors and those who visit us. That is where technology comes in. It is not about filling the city with screens or sensors, but rather that these sensors help us make better decisions.”
The PID allows municipalities to integrate and share tourism data to better manage their destinations
Enrique Martínez, president of SEGITTUR, has focused on one of the great risks facing the sector: that Spain is a power in receiving tourists, but not in the digital businesses that manage them: “Only 14% of the travel industry is European; 40% is in Asia. That means that you are missing a lot of your data, you have no power over it, there are no common standards, there is no cooperation between us. These are challenges that we have identified here and that give us the agenda of what we need.” For Martínez, the answer to this deficit involves betting on a common infrastructure: “There has to be a base made available to everyone, and from there each one takes the modules they need. That is exactly what the PID does.”
José Manuel Camarero, regional secretary of Tourism of the Valencian Community, has indicated that: “For a long time the great priority was to attract demand. Today, without ceasing to promote, the great challenge is to manage better: understand the flows, anticipate behaviors, organize the impacts, deseasonalize, improve coexistence and ensure that tourism continues to be a source of well-being for visitors and residents. Technology offers us new possibilities, but we need criteria, context, territorial sensitivity and strategic vision to convert these possibilities into good decisions.”
Antonio Pérez, mayor of Benidorm, closed the institutional round by demanding collaboration between both industries: “We need a powerful Spanish technology industry so that this governance of destinations continues to be the possible industry of happiness that in Benidorm we always want to highlight.”
After the opening, the program included an Act of Recognition of Aragon as a Guest Autonomous Community, along with a dialogue with Orange on how to democratize access to tourist data for small municipalities. María Jesús Jimeno, director of Tourism of Aragón, has summarized the change in mentality that the
destinations: “Data is not the end, but the means to be able to make decisions that allow us to advance in real and effective management of tourism. In Aragon we have decided to understand our territory to make it more competitive, more sustainable and more prepared, not for the future, but for the present.”
A day full of technology applied to tourism
The first technical panel of the congress has addressed the role of DMOs as orchestrators of the destination’s digital ecosystem, with the participation of SEGITTUR, Benidorm City Council and Telefónica. Next, Mastercard presented a presentation on how payment data can be a strategic tool for destination managers.
The rest of the day organized by AMETIC will address the use of digital twins (virtual replicas of a territory that allow scenarios to be simulated before making decisions) and the application of Artificial Intelligence to tourism public management, with voices from the Valencian Community, the Lanzarote Council, Telefónica Tech and Microsoft.
The day will conclude with the Digital Tourist 2026 Awards Gala, which each year recognizes the most innovative projects in the application of technology to tourism.
