Top for travel recovery

BENIDORM is officially the second best tourist destination in the world to recover from the Covid pandemic.

A report entitled Post-Pandemic Travel: Unlocking the Secrets to Review Recovery published by YouTrust places Benidorm’s recovery strategy as the second most effective after Paris of the 81 most popular international tourism destinations analysed, where only 10 were classed as effective.

YouTrust compiles 90 per cent of the world’s tourism reviews on a daily basis and sources data from global review sites and opinion databases of 92 per cent of the world’s hotels.

The 10 destinations showing a “notable recovery in the volume of opinions” are Paris, Benidorm, Marseille (France), Maldives, Lille (France), Paphos (Cyprus), Bern (Switzerland), Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Amiens (France) and Valletta (Malta).

Regarding Benidorm, the report states that the town “took proactive action to ensure health and safety, thus gaining the confidence of travellers”.

Mayor Toni Pérez explained that up to one month before the national State of Alarm was declared, “we began to analyse the risks and prepare contingency and action plans, as our top priority was to ensure the safety of residents and tourists while preserving the Benidorm brand”.

The mayor also added that Benidorm’s strategy was so effective and universally applauded thanks to the cooperation between the authorities and the tourism business sector, with national and international organisations mentioning the town as an example of success.

Sr Toni Pérez explained that the town’s Covid strategy was based on “data analysis, active listening, an immediate response focused on physical, health and emotional safety, and the synergy of interests” of all parties involved.

The mayor added that the pandemic “was a crisis situation that was negative for a high-density destination like Benidorm, but we turned it into a nationally and internationally recognised opportunity”.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) included the Marina Baixa destination as one of four examples of successful management during the pandemic at its meeting in Paris in November 2020 together with Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand.