Tourism

Barcelona City Council will spend 2.5 million euros from the European Union (EU) Next Generation Funds to subsidise nine tourism innovation and digitalisation projects submitted by seven of the city’s non-profit organisations with the goal of improving services related to the visitor economy and strengthening its return to local retailers.

The Barcelona Province Official Bulletin (BOPB) has published the winning projects and the results of the call for applications, which was targeted at associations, foundations and business organisations. It will fund initiatives that improve the provision of services in the visitor economy and help tourist activities fit in with city residents’ everyday lives, foster interconnections of goods and services or help tourist business and retailers to incorporate new technologies.

The subsidies are part of the Tourism Sustainability Plan for Destination Barcelona, financed by the EU’s Next Generation Funds. The nine winning projects propose solutions with demonstrable impacts that can be implemented in the short term and last over time, or that contribute to mitigating the effects of tourist overcrowding and guarantee that tourist activities better benefit the city as a whole both socially and economically.

There are three types of subsidies:

-Type 1: Marketing digitalisation projects

• Platform to Attract Tourists to Barcelona’s Retailers (abbreviated PATCB). Barcelona Commerce Foundation

The purpose of this project is to digitally transform Barcelona’s local retailers by developing an innovative platform that connects both domestic and international tourists to the city’s small retailers. The project meets the need to revitalise local retail, which has been affected by the increasing centralisation of tourism and small businesses’ lack of digital visibility.

• Digitalisation and Marketing of the Heritage (abbreviated DICOPA). Tourism ICT Cluster of Catalonia Association

The goal is to create 3D digital assets of the most important heritage elements in Barcelona in order to integrate them into sales channels. These scenarios will be created and automatically and technologically improved in aspects like modelling, texture and lighting, and later they will be broken down into their most valuable architectural parts to make them interactive. Plus, each model will include stories adapted to adults, youngsters and children in Catalan, English, French, German and Italian, a solution that is adaptable to the language needs and requirements of each tourist attraction. This service will be associated with tourist ticket purchases to offer visitors a digital experience that complements their physical tour.

• Interactive screens to promote local retail. Catalan Association of Family Retail Businesses – Comertia

The goal of this project is to install interactive LCD screens in Barcelona’s shops to improve the customer experience and boost the visibility of goods and promotions. The screens will allow direct interaction with users to offer personalised information and dynamic contents. This solution aims to modernise the retail space by enhancing its visual appearance and facilitating the purchase process.

-Type 2: Creation and consolidation of destination, data, tools and digital assets

• Advanced event management solution to optimise the demand and the distribution of tourist flows. Barcelona Hotel Guild

This project involves developing a database of events in Barcelona which will include multiple sources of information, such as cultural events, conferences and other events that impact the tourist demand.

• HUB CITY. Hub city guides Barcelona. Tourism ICT Cluster of Catalonia Association

The goal of this project is to achieve a programme to manage and organise guided tours targeted at tour operators and others who manage tours of the city. An app will also be developed to help tour guides do their job, which will end up generating a tourist intelligence system that provides information on visitors. With all the information generated by the Hub City Guides, an interactive viewer will be created that enables indicators to be set to track the activity, both the supply (tour guides) and the demand (visitors), and help relevant data to be transferred to the different public and private stakeholders in the city.

• PIMEC visitor economy data hub. PIMEC Small and Medium Enterprises of Catalonia

The goal of this project is to implement a platform that dynamically includes geolocated databases on population, economic activity, consumption, employment, mobility and environment directly and indirectly related to tourist activity and the visitor economy (TAVE) in Destination Barcelona. The ultimate goals are to generate information, knowledge and intelligence that enables it to be scaled, to boost the competitiveness of related associations, to generate new indicators, to create new services and to promote informed decision-making for companies, institutions and society.

• BOQ_DATA2024_2 Digital Boqueria. Mercat Municipal de la Boqueria Retailers’ Association

This project aims to implement advanced smart sensors to count people and develop a personalised platform adapted to the market. This platform will enable heat maps to be generated and will monitor the capacity and flow of people at the market in real time to optimise operational management and improve visitor circulation. Plus, it will provide detailed monthly statistics to facilitate the visualisation of indicators on quality, time and the areas that attract the most people.

• LOYALTY CARDS. Digital loyalty to promote Barcelona’s local retailers. Catalan Association of Family Retail Businesses – Comertia

This project aims to strengthen Barcelona’s local retailers through an innovative strategy based on AI and geolocation technologies to promote the sale of goods and services to the city’s visitors and tourists. It uses Synerise, a loyalty platform that combines artificial intelligence and data to personalise customers’ deals and recommendations, as well as Passcreator, a tool that creates digital cards that users can save on their mobile phones, similar to airplane tickets saved in wallets. The digital cards can be downloaded using QR codes located at key points like the airport, train and underground stations and shops. These digital cards allow personalised push notifications to be sent to users based on their location and preferences. Visitors register in the club by filling out a brief form on their interests and type of trip, and they will receive personalised suggestions of local shops to visit.

-Type 3: Other initiatives based on digitalisation, technological innovation or sustainability

• 365 Barcelona Sport Experiences. Barcelona Sportstech HUB23

The goal of this project is to offer personalised packages under the concept of SportsTech, taking advantage of the intersection between these two sectors. This will allow visitors to access unique experiences which include innovative technologies applied to sport, like augmented and virtual reality, as well as to interact with cutting-edge institutions like the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and world-class professional teams.

With this call for applications for subsidies, Barcelona City Council’s goal is to further improve digitalisation and the drive for innovation in the field of the visitor economy and retail. It is important to note that in the past year the city of Barcelona passed the requirements needed to earn the Smart Tourist Destination (STD) certification granted by the State Company for Managing Tourism Innovation and Technologies (Segittur), and that it has been a member of the Smart Tourism Destinations Network since April 2021. Behind all of these efforts is the drive to build a tourist destination that incorporates values like governance, sustainability, accessibility, innovation and technology not only to foster a renewed appreciation of the destination but also to guarantee the quality of the tourist experience and to improve residents’ quality of life.