Introduction

Sant Pol de Mar is a small coastal town of just over 5,000 permanent residents. Its unique charm lies in its intimacy, local traditions, and natural beauty. Yet in peak summer months, the population swells to 25,000 more or less, bringing both economic benefits and significant challenges.

Current digital resources — town agendas, event listings, and tourism updates — are not consistently maintained or widely connected. This results in lost opportunities for local businesses, overcrowding in high season, and under-appreciation of Sant Pol (only one of 16 coastal municipalities), the rest of the year.

There are a total of 30 municipalities in the Maresme region, which includes 16 coastal towns plus the towns situated directly inland of each town. The region extends from Montgat (just after Badalona, Barcelona) to the Tordera river in the north at Blanes, with the inland towns located in the pre-coastal mountains. 

Project – Discovery Guides

Here, we are proposing the creation of a community-driven digital portal that coordinates information, promotes balanced tourism, and strengthens the bond between locals, visitors, and nearby towns. The plan is to create a portal website for the Catalan Maresme coastal area which would be based in the seaside town of Sant Pol de Mar which is conneceted to three neighbouring towns on the Maresme. The website would connect to other public facing town council agendas, provide commercial, hospitality, and tourist information, as well as collecting town council agendas for events, festivals, and public-facing activities into one online space. 

The existing online services and events that are currently provided and available are not consistantly updated, and the ‘agendas’ are sporadic and brief. The portal site would aim to increase the connection between the nearby towns of Calella, Sant Cebria, and Canet de Mar as an initial local resource, which would benefit small and large retail businesses, big events, annual festivals, and hospitality businesses between these three towns, and beyond. 

The website would also help visitors and locals better appreciate Sant Pol and its intimate, small-town charm and limited capacity. One part of the website would focus on improving relationships between visitors and locals. Over-tourism and other disruptions caused by events are big problems for small towns.

Encouraging visitors and occasional or remote property owners to pay more attention, in their advertising or holiday planning, to the obvious popularity of Sant Pol and it’s neighboring towns, rather than letting it become such a disruption and discomfort for everyone between June and August, This could probably be achieved through promotions and notices, and encouraged through the portal website. This would mean spreading the joy of Sant Pol throughout the year, and making the region and it’s attractions more enjoyable for both locals, holiday accommodation owners, and visitors, rather than it being the hottest and most uncomfortable time to visit. 

As tourism increases, smaller towns get swamped and over-tourism can directly affect community life, and not just the hospitality and retail sectors, which are dormant the rest of the year. So that sitting population of 5000, has to tolerate, service, and accommodate those extra 20,000 or more.

COVID isolation, over-tourism protests elsewhere in Spain, and Catalan cultural and other local festivities in Sant Pol are all factors to consider. The website could remind tourists and regular visitors, who may own property and summer homes, to respect local culture and come visit at less popular times of the year, if possible or feasible, to enjoy assimilation and comfort. 

There is a need for coordination and communication between the various appreciators of the tourism attractions of Sant Pol but it has limited capacity, and thats part of what makes it so attractive, so this can be used as both the limitor and the reason to keep it ‘exclusive’ and intimate – this website could help get that messaage and notice across locally and internationally through English, Spanish and Catalan – the visitors would then respect and learn and apprciate better the town and all it has to offer.  

This website could achieve this by coordinating the autonomous communities, town councils, tourism associations and local hospitality businesses and services, and the logistics and travel services already in place by helping them all to be used more efficiently and respectfully. 

The situation of crazy busy hospitality and crowded beaches, and congested transport systems and services, to the loss of retail footfall and local commerce year on year, needs to be attended to as an imbalance, which locals are accustomed to and can adapt. But to bring people together, both locals and visitors, and showcase what’s available, with useful information and up-to-date agendas of ‘What’s On and Things to do’, an online service that brings it all together could be very helpful in finding that balance, and the community could then thrive and enjoy their home, and ‘home away from home’.

It could also be a way to help small retail and hospitality proprietors to market, sell, and collaborate on scheduling, e-commerce, and international outreach to present and showcase the culture and ‘charms’ of this little ‘paradise’. 

This all happens already, and it should be a good experience for this place, and everyone in it, part-time or full-time, or just visiting. The members of this community could see the website as representing their interests while providing a type of trader/seller / local / visitors’ community resource. If it is general public-facing, it could help both locals and visitors feel more at home, and appreciate that visiting the town and its surrounding attractions is better done ‘off-season’, then they would respect and appreciate it better. 

The site could also provide a very good resource for the retail traders, cafés, hospitality, everything that makes income from tourists, chiringuitos on the beach, temporary businesses that come and go depending on the seasons, fetes and fairs, and organised events, and from these more commercial enterprises could come commissions or small percentages of sales to help the site and it’s creators and administraors be self-sustaining. 

Then, we could connect with the virtual world in the sense of being able to enjoy places like Sant Pol from afar, if when the familiar and accustomed visitor can’t make it here. Here in Sant Pol, we could make it more family-friendly to help attract the more respectful tourist family who may prefer a less busy environment and avoid over-excitement and overwhelm. 

The existing social cohesion of Sant Pol is to be admired and should be respected. Many of the younger people of Sant Pol feel a familial loyalty to their own community, and so many will stay and some will go to explore their pathways elsewhere, for a while. We need to keep that aspect of the next generation’s movements balanced and coordinated, so that those who go and come back bring stories and experience to share with those who have stayed to support the local community. And that would extend to the visitors and part-timers as well.