Amazing Barcelona: new digital tourism hub launches

Amazing Barcelona, a new public-private platform that aims to promote the digitalization of the tourism sector in the Catalan capital was launched on Tuesday at the iconic Camp Nou, home to FC Barcelona, one of the backers of the initiative from the Barcelona Tourism Board.

The new "tourist data hub" will "manage information, products and digital tourist services for Barcelona and Catalonia as a whole," according to a statement.

The Catalan government, Barcelona City Council, Telefónica, Vueling and the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce are just some of the companies and organizations giving their support to Amazing Barcelona.

The Barcelona Tourist Board's statement says that the sector has had "a gap" in terms of digitization, and that the aim of the new hub is to cover it.

"We want to take advantage of data coming in from different sources to boost the visitor economy and regenerate this industry, which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis," the statement explains.

The idea of the consortium is to form a team that will work in a high-tech data center to analyze visitor demand and propose solutions.

The hub will launch an app with information for visitors and a series of features in order to improve their stay in Barcelona.

It aims to manage the flow of people visiting places of interest and reduce overcrowding.

According to the consortium, the project will be eligible for funding from Next Generation EU, the EU's Covid-19 recovery package.