Spain Tourists To Book Spaces For Towels On Beaches

Story By: Jonathan MaciasSub EditorJoseph GolderAgency: Newsflash

Tourists at Spanish beaches could be made to reserve spaces to lay down their towels using this new mobile phone application which will warn them if areas are overcrowded to aid with social distancing.

Spanish company ‘Natare 360’ which has experience organising events and managing ticket sales has created a system to calculate the capacity of beaches and allow visitors to reserve places for their towels.

Felipe Menendez, spokesman and coordinator of Natare 360, told local newspaper ‘Diario de Mallorca’: “First, we digitise the beaches of the municipalities. We calculate the capacity with the measurements of the beaches.

Newsflash/Natare 360

“Then we digitise it so that citizens can make prior reservations on the websites of the municipalities at no cost.”

The first picture shows a model done on a beach of the Balearic island of Majorca.

Menendez told Newsflash: “The image was done on a beach in the north of Majorca, it is a 500-metre (1,640-foot) long beach, and we recommend creating five areas with a capacity for 300 people each based on the indications of the Health Ministry.

Newsflash/Natare 360

“This distribution also allows us to segment the zones by the type of visitor (families with children, adults, people over 65).”

The system can be combined with other measures such as using floor strips and flags to mark individual areas on the beach and it allows beachgoers to make last-minute reservations.

Menendez told local media: “Our tool allows you to make a reservation even when you are at the beach. When they (beachgoers) enter the website, a traffic light system will inform them of the availability using colours. It doesn’t take long in advance to book.”

Newsflash/Natare 360

The system is being used at a local swimming pool in the municipality of Inca on the Balearic island of Majorca and has been sent as a proposal to several city councils on the coast of Spain, the Canary Islands and the Balearic islands.

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.