Consell de Mallorca will incorporate the rigor of scientific studies into its decision-making regarding tourism. This was announced this Wednesday by the president of the island's institution, Llorenç Galmés, accompanied by the Minister of Tourism, José Marcial Rodríguez Díaz, after holding a meeting with officials from the FUEIB (University-Business Foundation of the Balearic Islands), and several university professors.
The objective of the Consell de Mallorca, as Galmés explained, is to integrate scientific rigor into the decision-making process of the Department of Tourism, "with responsibility as the highest priority and within the concept of coexistence that we have been promoting for over a year."
Along these lines, the Department of Tourism has articulated a series of management assignments with the FUEIB (Federal University-Business Foundation) to achieve this incorporation of the university into decision-making. "Our intention is that through the UIB, which is a reflection of today's society and the shaper of tomorrow's society, we can promote tourism policies that promote coexistence."
Specifically, five management contracts have already been signed for a total of nearly €1.5 million. First, two have been signed with the UIB department led by Professor Bartomeu Alorda (Professor of Electronic Technology), which encompass actions aimed at creating a large data platform and analyzing all the impacts that tourism activity may have on different parts of the island.
Specifically, the first aims to provide technical and scientific support for the development and evolution of the Mallorca Tourism Intelligence System (SIT) of the Mallorca Sustainable Tourism Observatory to automatically collect, transform, store, and analyze data about the island. The second seeks to integrate data from various sensors into the Tourism Intelligence System.
Third, another agreement was signed with the UIB Audiovisual Laboratory, headed by Professor Juan Montes de Oca. The mission of the agreement is to promote an augmented reality project applied to Mallorca. The objective is to select tourist resources for the application of augmented reality and to geolocate them. A mobile app will also be created.
Fourth, and as a boost to Smart Tourist Destinations (DTIs), a management contract has been signed with Professor Tolo Deyà's department to manage a municipal economic study to determine the economic, social, and environmental impacts per municipality.
Finally, another management contract has been signed with the UIB legal team, led by Avelí Blasco and Silvia Feliú, for the development of the regulations derived from the tourism law, in addition to all the legal measures necessary for the development of the department.
The President of the Consell praised the signing of these agreements with the FUEIB (Federal Union of the Basque Country) and emphasized that "we are not going to talk about tourism as it has been understood until now, because we are no longer using the concept we used 30 years ago. Now, the goal is to seek and fight for this coexistence." "From now on, we must make the model efficient and lead the change in vision; we must promote and defend the pursuit of responsible tourism."