The town of Tequila, quite famous as the birthplace of the quintessential Mexican drink, is a relatively small municipality of 40,000 residents that can be easily overrun by the estimated 1.4 million tourists that visit each year. To improve the experience of these tourists and expand the available activities, Tequila development leaders are modernizing the historical city with digital technology aimed at improving the services and facilities available to visitors and its own citizens.
The government has lofty tech ambitions for Tequila. The town has been designated by the government of Mexico as the country’s first “pueblo magico inteligente,” or smart magical city, with a goal of achieving that distinction by 2040. In collaboration with the National Geographic Society and Mondo Cuervo, the Mexican government aims to transform the town of Tequila into the country’s first completely interactive tourist destination.
“It’s very important that we understand how well our town is functioning 24x7,” explains José Alfonso Magallanes, Municipal President of Tequila. “We want to provide the best in connectivity, accessibility, and mobility. And we want everyone that visits Tequila to leave with a smile.”
Abuzz with Smart Technology
To do that, Tequila partnered with Hitachi Vantara and several IT solution providers to build a smarter, safer future using video analytics, sensors, and intelligent applications that can gather and store relevant operational data collected around town. And unlike the Jose Cuervo, the data won’t stay bottled up—it will be shared and put to work. Tourists, business, citizens, and town leaders will all benefit from the transformation of Tequila to a smart city, which will in turn drive greater economic, social, and industrial development for the area.
The need for digital transformation in the industrial city surrounded by fields of blue agave is high. An increasing volume of visitors each year to Tequila has put great pressure on the town’s infrastructure, explains Federico de Arteaga, Planning Director at Grupo JB, who is spearheading the smart city initiative. Tequila needs the ability to capture and analyze data on everything from sidewalk safety to restaurant capacity.
“Our data was too fragmented to extract meaningful insights. We needed to create an integrated repository of information that enables all the stakeholders in the town to make better decisions,” says de Arteaga. "Hitachi immediately understood our vision and the challenges we faced around data integration and scale."
Tequila is using several Hitachi solutions, including Hitachi Smart Spaces and Hitachi Video Analytics (HVA), which includes traffic analytics, parking space analytics, social media analytics, people counter, and intrusion detection. The platform allows the city to capture, integrate, and analyze both historical and real-time data. "With support from Hitachi, we can leverage the power of big data in a strategic way," says de Arteaga.
Tequila has invested in an intelligent system for managing the overall tourism experience. The town has multiple working cameras, wireless access points, free Wi-Fi in the historical district, and sensors positioned around the town to capture data on people and traffic volumes as well as the frequency of visits to restaurants and shops. With the Hitachi Parking Space Analyzer and People Counter, Tequila can turn this data into valuable insights around visitor experience, behavior, and safety.
To gauge the success of its ongoing smart city efforts, Tequila uses Hitachi Smart Spaces and intelligence to track and visualize public sentiment across a range of sources, including social media. The data helps with planning for public wi-fi, capacity planning for local businesses, and traffic monitoring across the town.
Easy Parking, Eating, Drinking
As the smart city initiative gains momentum, Tequila will use real-time data capture to help residents and visitors make better choices about where to visit, eat, and park. For example, intelligent displays will be positioned around the town to highlight the wait times for parking lots and restaurant tables as availability and capacity changes.
To support the Tequila intelligent initiative, the government has also established a command center in Mexico City, where data is aggregated and analyzed in real-time. The government is using Tequila as the model to shape the next wave of smart city developments, which will also boost the town’s profile around the world.
Learn more about the Hitachi Vantara solutions in use in the town of Tequila.