Puerto del Rosario unveils ALIRA, its smart tourism assistant, at FITUR
Puerto del Rosario introduced its new intelligent tourist assistant, ALIRA, on 22 January during FITUR 2026. The launch took place at the stand of the Association of Canary Islands Tourist Municipalities (AMTC), where the digital tool—named after the acronym Local Intelligent Assistant of Resources and Attention—was presented to the public.
ALIRA is conceived as a 24/7 digital tourism office, specifically designed to provide official municipal tourism information with a special focus on local heritage. The assistant offers personalized, experiential, and multilingual support tailored to the needs of visitors to Puerto del Rosario.
The presentation is part of the municipality’s transformation strategy toward becoming a Smart Tourist Destination, driven by the City Council. Puerto del Rosario joined the Smart Destination project in 2021, producing a Diagnostic Report and an Action Plan that were revised and adapted to a new methodology in July 2024.
A Digital Tool Serving Visitors and the Municipality
ALIRA is not a generic chatbot nor a conventional tourism app. It is a system built exclusively for Puerto del Rosario, trained with local and official data. It can hold natural conversations, understand the context of queries, and deliver useful, situation‑specific answers.
- Multilingual support: The assistant currently operates in eight languages—Spanish, English, German, French, Italian, Polish, Danish, and Dutch—automatically detecting the user’s language from the first message.
- Key features: Real‑time contextual information, geolocation with distance and time calculations, personalized route generation, and voice interaction that allows hands‑free use while walking through the town.
Own Infrastructure, Public Control, and Privacy
A distinguishing element of ALIRA is its technological governance model. The tool runs on a dedicated data centre owned by the City Council, isolated from unauthorized external content. ALIRA replies solely with information explicitly loaded into its knowledge base, ensuring that only official, verified content aligned with municipal tourism strategy is used.
Regarding privacy, the assistant does not request or store personal data, requires no registration, and any shared location data is used only during an active conversation and automatically deleted after a maximum of 12 hours.
A Living Platform in Continuous Learning
During the launch, officials emphasized that ALIRA is a perpetually evolving tool. Real‑world interactions with visitors enable the system to detect new needs, recurring topics, and demanded functionalities, which are incorporated after daily human reviews, guaranteeing continuous supervision and content validation.
Among the newly unveiled functions is the generation of “Perfect Day” proposals—complete itineraries for a full day or several hours that combine gastronomy, culture, heritage, beaches, and activities—to facilitate an integrated visitor experience.
Second Phase: Local Gastronomy and Commerce
The municipality announced a second project phase focused on local gastronomy and commerce. A forthcoming web platform will allow all local businesses to feed their information directly into ALIRA’s ecosystem. Restaurants, services, products, and culinary offerings will be reviewed and, once approved, become part of the assistant’s native content, enabling contextual recommendations that directly link tourism with the local economy.
Another Step Forward in the Municipal Tourism Strategy
By showcasing ALIRA at FITUR 2026, Puerto del Rosario reinforces its position as an innovative, accessible, and continuously improving destination. The assistant joins other municipal initiatives such as gastronomic and artisan markets, SICTED certification, sports tourism promotion, augmented reality experiences, and commitments to accessibility and sustainability.
ALIRA is now a strategic, dynamic tool serving both visitors and the municipality’s tourism management, and it will keep evolving to meet future needs.