Tool for auditing Sustainable Tourism Plans and Actions

Description

Sustainable tourism plans represent a significant investment effort and strategic commitment for the municipality. As with any professional business today, the implementation of these investment plans must necessarily involve an analysis of goal achievement and results.

Current monitoring systems for tourism indicators (if they exist) only consider a global vision at the municipal level and often rely on data that may not be representative of reality (visitors to tourist offices, tourist accommodations and etc.), which do not allow a clear understanding of which actions of the planned strategy are successful and which are not.

The effects of all actions are often mixed together.

These actions take place in specific physical areas, not throughout the entire municipality or territory. However, it was previously believed that they couldn't be measured separately because technologies did not provide reliable and detailed data on a zone-by-zone basis.

We encounter various types of actions, such as creating shaded areas for a walkway, pedestrianizing an area, opening a new cycling route, or renovating a particular tourist resource (beach, monument, square, etc.).

Hundreds of thousands of euros are invested in each of these actions, and it would be desirable to know how these tourist resources have evolved, whether progress has been fast or slow, if we have attracted new visitors from specific areas, how they move, and which other tourist resources they visit together, etc.

Municipalities Need Justifying the Actions*

Any professional investment plan manager should consider the following questions:

• Have you planned for an automatic tracking of results once the plan is implemented?

• Will you be able to see how the number of tourists/excursionists evolves in each tourist resource automatically?

• Will you be able to know the results of each new action/event/zone or new tourist experience automatically?

• Will you automatically have the opinions and details of the visitors?

• Will you have an automatic report to send to the press, the mayor's office, intervention, media outlets, etc., with the most significant data on a monthly basis?

Currently, these tasks must be done manually, searching for data sources when it's necessary to report to the media. For example, it requires a significant amount of time from tourism technicians to obtain data, without real information on which to base specific actions in specific areas. It’s not sufficient that multiplying data from the tourist office, which may not be highly visited, or having data from accommodations, or estimating visitors' data to these specific tourist areas or points of interest where improvements have been made.

With the limited resources usually available in municipalities, a simple and reliable automatic reporting tool is necessary to obtain detailed information about the number, origin, and behavior of tourists, excursionists, or citizens visiting each tourist resource, activity, tourist area, how they move, and what they think. This includes the evolution and comparison before and after developing and executing each action, etc. In short, this is a basic tool for any tourism observatory, but logically, we do it in a fully automated way, without dedicating human resources, data analysts, etc.

Specific Objectives of the Action

The objective of this tool is to provide the municipality with an automatic and straightforward solution for reporting and auditing the progress of each action undertaken in the plan.

At the same time, it aims to ensure that homogeneous and massive data, not estimated or fabricated by a third party (this solution), are used to generate automatic reports on the evolution of each tourist resource and each action.

To achieve this, mobile detection equipment based on Seeketing technology is deployed. Other technologies such as Wi-Fi tracking, mobile applications, or data from telecommunication operators cannot be used, as they do not offer sufficient resolution to provide data on specific areas within the municipality, or they lack massive data. Cameras are also not suitable, as they only count foot traffic, counting the same person multiple times as different individuals; it cannot distinguish between tourists, pilgrims, citizens, or passersby.

The placement of Seeketing nodes is plug-and-play, allowing data to be collected before and after the actions taken by the plan. Unlike other technologies, this enables the observation of the evolution of each tourist resource, not just counting the number of visitors to a museum, but truly understanding the profile of visitors to any tourist space (open or closed, urban or rural, etc.). By focusing on this profile (e.g., visitors or cyclists), we can really assess the intended effect of the plan, implement improvement actions, and make decisions for future investments. It also allows sharing the best experiences and results with other destinations working on a real national plan.

In other words, the goal is not to invest significant amounts of money in a tourist observatory that provides general data, but rather to invest in a simple, direct, and automatic tool that generates reports on the evolution of each action outlined in the sustainable tourism plan.

Our technological solution is the only one capable of generating massive, reliable, and legally compliant data on indicators such as customer knowledge and automated communication with visitors based on proximity, to have a management of the big data of the municipality and digitize the management and interaction with locals and visitors, this objective is detailed in:

1. People Counting: It measures the number of people using the tourist resource, whether in open or closed areas, large or small, overcoming the inaccuracies of using cameras (which count the steps of the same person as multiple individuals). It also manages the control of the capacity in tourist-commercial areas. Real-time messages are generated for municipal management and security, and/or for visitors, both indoors and outdoors, with recommendations on occupancy at any given time and the best times to visit.

2. Flows and Movements between Areas of Interest: At all times, we have information on the origin and destination of visitor movements, enabling the analysis and distinction of citizens, tourists, and excursionists (non-overnight visitors).

3. Profile of Each Visitor: According to their movements and behavioral habits, visitors are classified, known and distinguished, including citizens from tourists, excursionists from pilgrims, and preferences for different types of tourist resources.

4. Origin of Visitors: The system also analyzes the main points of origin of tourists (European airports), as well as other points of origin that the municipality wishes to know in detail to gauge the response to proximity campaigns aimed at encouraging visitors to consume local products and services. We can implement highly segmented communications to avoid the perception of SPAM associated with other marketing systems. This achieves high conversion rates in visits to recommended areas and also boosts sales in commercial zones.

5. Technology to Collect Visitor Feedback and Information: With visitor consent, the system can send them tourist information, recommendations, and surveys to better understand their preferences and interests when visiting each tourist resource. Messages can be sent upon arrival or departure from the tourist resource to avoid disturbing them at other inappropriate times and places.
The data output and input from this system can be managed in an integrated and unified manner with any tourism information system.

6. Executing Entity: Municipality and awarded companies

7. to 10. Budget for the 3rd Year (euros)

Example for auditing and monitoring 5 areas of action included in other actions of the sustainable tourism plan: 75,000 Euros
For additional areas of action, the cost is proportional at a rate of 15,000 Euros per action to be audited, monitored, and generate automatic reports annually. This includes license and maintenance for 3 years.

This budget can be divided into annual installments if desired.

11. Expected Results

The system generates automatic reports that can be complemented with any additional information provided by technicians or other data sources if necessary. These reports explain the behavior of tourist resources before and after the plan, considering factors related to the resources themselves and external factors (such as weather, macroeconomic trends, and other factors that can modulate the plan's results).

The main data on which the reports are based include:

• Massive data on the flow of visitors and visits to different areas of action, in detail.
• Massive data on the volume of new and recurring visitors to the same area or various areas (specifically different tourist resources).
• Massive data on time spent in each area and which other tourist resources are visited by each visitor profile.
• Automatic extraction of visitor/tourist profiles, segmentation into behavioral patterns in physical and digital locations of visitors. For example, among others: For example, among others:
• Recurring and new visitors in each location.
• Visitors who have visited one, two, three, ... points of interest, such as PILGRIMS; CYCLISTS following specific routes.
• Weekday-only visitors / Weekend-only visitors.
• Regular visitors to these facilities
• Visitors by zones (time spent in each zone and the order of visits).
• Visitors to outdoor areas or indoor locations.
• Morning visitors - Arrive before 12 p.m. on weekdays.
• Visitors by ORIGIN - Based on where they were detected before, such as those coming from the airport or bus station. Or aggregated data revealing their origin or nationality based on mobile phone data.

Employees of different areas

Registered visitors who viewed the tourism website/app in recent days and are now in one of the selected locations

Registered visitors who received communication and have traveled to the suggested location

- Automatic data generation of events, allowing for the selection of dates (hours) and areas where the activity took place. For example, every Tuesday in May from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Beach area.

- Proximity interaction through the automatic sending of messages to visitors' mobile phones, allowing, among other features:

• Real-time communication or interaction with visitors to obtain qualitative information about their profile (language, nationality, psychosociodemographic), preferences, interests, complaints, surveys, etc.
• Understanding their digital behavior on websites and apps, linked to their physical presence. Unique phygital identifier. Implementing unique gamification dynamics in physical and digital spaces.
• Visitors can register in 10 seconds by filling out a simple form, agreeing to receive communications or information based on proximity when they arrive at any physical space.
• Sending proximity messages to visitors and tourists who wish to register on the platform, using various channels: WhatsApp, SMS, push notifications, email, web, etc.
• Knowing the profile, preferences, and behavior in digital media (websites, apps) of registered individuals detected in physical spaces, thus having a unique identifier. In other words, understanding phygital behavior.

12. Indicators for Evaluation:

• Plug & play implementation of Seeketing nodes before executing the plan to have data on evolution (before/after).
• Automatic monthly reports.
• Possibility of integrating it with other tools.
• Possibility of sharing data with other municipalities to have a platform at a country or territorial level.