Valencia-based start-up's part in running the world's biggest swimming pool

THE WORLD'S largest swimming pool has been built using Spanish technology – and completing just one length means being almost competition-fit.

Taking up to 250 million litres to fill and right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the pool on the San Alfonso del Mar residential and holiday complex in Algarrobo, Valparaíso, Chile, is just over a kilometre long – 1,012 metres, to be precise – and so close to the beach that swimmers propping themselves on the edge of the pool for a breather can chat to sunseekers on the sands.

It would seem there should never be any reason to book a slot to use the pool, or worry about its being full, but given its prime location and its holding the title of 'world's biggest', it is, clearly, exceptionally popular.

A start-up company in the Valencia region, on Spain's east coast, called MyTurn.es, has struck a deal with the developers to use software created by the Mediterranean firm.

MyTurn.es specialises in space management – communal areas in hotels, holiday resorts, urbanisations, public areas and business convention venues – and its programme enables the user to handle bookings.

It also provides full contact-tracing details, so that if anyone has used a venue or been present on a residential or holiday complex and is infected with Covid-19, all others who have been there at the same time will be notified.

The downside is that anyone who wants to use the 'world's largest pool' has to download an App onto their mobile phone designed by MyTurn.es; this may put people off since, with use of almost any facility these days requiring yet another App, mobile users are collectively running out of disk-space.

It also means anyone with a much older phone, or a basic non-SmartPhone device only used for calls and texts messages, will not be able to use the pool.

But for those who have a modern mobile, it allows them to keep safe by tracking anyone who has been near a Covid-positive case.

The software includes 'various functions for managing bookings quickly and simply' on the part of the user, 'instantly updating data' in order to 'maximise use of spaces' – and as well as preventing overcrowding, also avoids people missing out when there are, in fact, slots available that nobody had otherwise noticed.

It runs using an API connection and automatic cameras, with QR codes to confirm a person's presence.

MyTurn.es first saw the light of day in May 2020, just when the northern hemisphere summer was on the horizon and public attention was turning to whether or not beaches, pools and similar facilities and venues could be used, and how to keep people safe when doing so.

It started off as a 'fair' way of regulating 'turns' in communal pools on residential complexes, avoiding the inevitable conflict which could arise if a physical person was responsible for keeping a register throughout the day. 

“What started as a simple application to be able to take a dip in the pool at your home apartment block has become a solution which, along with Take a Spot, has allowed normality to return to holiday parks, hotels, local facilities, shops, businesses, university halls of residence and so on in Spain, México and Chile, with the likelihood of soon breaking into Argentina and Colombia,” says MyTurn's owner. 

Spain's and Europe's debate over safety of pools and beaches in summer 2020 in terms of social distancing has been carefully watched by southern hemisphere countries with a view to taking their lead from their northern counterparts, since they were immersed in winter at the time.

Now, whilst northern and central Spain waits for the snow to melt and roads to reopen, and southern and Mediterranean Spain shiver in night temperatures falling to low single figures, South America and Oceania are sweltering in summer heat and making a beeline for pools and beaches.