The Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE) develops intense standardisation activity for smart cities and destinations, in line with the main objectives of the Secretariat of State for Tourism and led by SEGITTUR (Sociedad Mercantil Estatal para la Gestión de la Innovación y las Tecnologías Turísticas) through the UNE Committee for Smart Cities.
The work involving over 700 experts has resulted in 34 UNE standards, of which 8 are specifically aimed at the tourism ecosystem. These standards, developed in the Subcommittee for Smart Destinations, help to consolidate Spain’s leadership in tourism.
Unlike previously published DTI standards for management systems, indicators and horizontally applicable semantics, these latest 5 standards focus on improving specific aspects.
- Standard UNE 178504establishes the requirements and recommendations for a digital, smart hotel connected to smart destination/smart city platforms. It revises some aspects of the previous version with the aim of facilitating its applicability by the properties.
- Standards UNE178505, which describes the framework for the creation of tourist destination websites, and UNE 178506, which establishes the methodology for search engine optimisation (SEO) of websites of tourist destinations, set forth guidelines to improve the tourist experience, reliability, quality and positioning of the website, as well as to improve the interaction between people, companies, services and destinations.
- Standard UNE 178507, on applications of Wi-Fi connections in beaches, facilitates data collection for the improvement of decision-making by the tourist destination management entity.
- Finally, Standard UNE 178508, on the tourist destination app model for mobile devices, establishes a series of general development, design, content and data management characteristics, to promote its integrated operation with the destination’s data intelligence ecosystem.
With a view to continuing the standardisation work, Enrique Martínez Marín, president of SEGITTUR, and Javier García Díaz, general director of UNE, have signed a new partnership agreement to promote the development of technical standards in support of the digital and sustainable transformation of destinations. The agreement will help Spain’s leading position in the international tourism market.
The activities planned for 2022 and 2023 include the development of 3 new projects of UNE standards for smart destinations, the internationalisation of one of the UNE Standards already published, the testing of the UNE Standard on apps, and the preparation of a report that highlights the good practices and benefits of a joint implementation of SEGITTUR’s smart destination methodology and the requirements of the UNE Standard 178501 on management system for smart destinations.
The Executive Committee of the Network of Smart Destinations, chaired by the Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés, today approved the incorporation of 67 new destinations and the modification of the Network’s regulations, and analysed the categorisation of all its members.
With these 67 new destinations, the DTI Network now has 610 members, of which 437 are regular member destinations, 79 are institutional members, 91 are collaborating companies and 3 are observers.
The DTI Network is thirteen times bigger than when it was first created, a sign of the destinations’ interest in the model. However, the number of memberships cannot impact the good support offered to the destinations. Consequently, it has been decided to postpone the addition of any new members until the existing destinations are onboarded, categorised and subject to diagnosis.
By autonomous regions, Andalusia has the most members in the Network at 98, followed by Galicia (78), Castile and Leon (44), Canary Islands (32), Principality of Asturias (26), Catalonia (24), Region of Valencia (24), Region of Murcia (19), Aragon (18), Region of Madrid (14), Cantabria (13), Balearic Islands (12), Castile-La Mancha (12), Extremadura (11), Basque Country (6), La Rioja (4), the Autonomous Region of Ceuta (1) and Navarre (1).
An analysis of the DTI Network shows that the member municipalities represent 5.3% of the total number of municipalities in Spain, and 44% of the Spanish population. It should also be noted that 42 of the 52 provincial capitals are members of the DTI Network, together with the 15 World Heritage cities and the 8 municipalities that are part of the Sun and Sand Tourist Municipalities Alliance.
During the meeting, the Committee announced the creation of a working group that will combine the methodology of the DTI diagnostic reports with the UNE standards. Lastly, work is being done on an intranet for the DTI Network, which will be announced shortly.
