The TI·LAB of Torrevieja City Council presents a pioneering study on the use of new sources of information for the analysis of tourist behavior.

Councilor for Tourism Rosario Martínez Chazarra; UA researcher Marco A. Celdrán; professor and researcher from the Department of Computer Languages and Systems Juan Morales García; and the director of the UA Headquarters in Torrevieja, Jesús Segarra, presented this work, which represents a milestone in the application of territorial intelligence and big data analysis in the context of local tourism management.

Using sources such as AirDNA (vacation rentals), Mastercard (tourism transactions), and weather records, the report offers a pioneering analysis of the relationship between tourist occupancy, property profitability, destination spending, and seasonal behavior. The results suggest the merits of implementing a comprehensive monitoring system that would allow residential destinations like Torrevieja to anticipate trends, adapt their tourism strategy, and reduce seasonality.

During the presentation, the study's main conclusions and recommendations were detailed, aimed at both local authorities and the business sector. The results obtained in this study confirm the transformative potential of integrating new data sources into tourism diagnostic and planning processes, especially in residential destinations such as Torrevieja. The combination of data from private platforms (AirDNA, Mastercard) with climate records and complementary sources allows for the construction of more granular, dynamic, and decision-oriented territorial knowledge. This approach highlights the need to overcome the limitations of traditional tourism information systems, investing in tourism-territorial intelligence models that foster more adaptive, interoperable, and evidence-based governance.

Furthermore, spatial concentration patterns, seasonal behaviors, and significant correlations between occupancy, profitability, and spending are identified, which invite us to rethink the distribution of promotional efforts, the adaptation of infrastructure, and the articulation of supply diversification policies. In this sense, the report not only provides a rigorous analytical framework but also lays out an operational roadmap for moving toward a comprehensive monitoring and management system, open to public-private collaboration and aligned with the principles of the smart tourism destination model.

This work reinforces the role of TI·LAB as a space for applied innovation serving the region and positions Torrevieja as a benchmark pilot case in the transition toward more sustainable, digital, and resilient tourism, within the process of transforming Torrevieja into a Smart Tourism Destination (STT).

It should be noted that access to the data sources used in this report has been made possible thanks to funding from the research project "Development of Virtual Open Data Portals in Tourism (VirtualData)" (CIAICO/2022/019), financed by the Ministry of Education, Universities and Employment of the Generalitat Valenciana (Generalitat Valenciana). This fact highlights the added value that the TI·LAB research team brings to the local ecosystem. Although the Torrevieja City Council finances and supports this laboratory, it also benefits from the returns generated by external scientific projects, thus reinforcing the strategic usefulness of TI·LAB as a bridge between university research and public tourism management.