Digitalisation of public pools: booking, data and energy

For public pools, it is increasingly clear that attendance numbers alone are not enough. What matters is managing capacity, courses, entries, changing rooms, staff, filtration and energy. If an operator has data scattered across several separate systems, planning suffers and losses are hard to track down.

• Online booking reduces queues and gives an overview of occupancy.
• CRM and courses help build relationships with returning visitors.
• An access control system shows real capacity over time.
• Load-based filtration and heating can cut energy costs.

What such an operation looks like in practice is shown by the municipal pool in Salou, Catalonia. According to the industry newsletter poolbiz.eu from late July 2026, it is the first connected “smart pool” in Catalonia — the facility has joined the Spanish EPIC network (Connected Smart Pools), supported by the swimming federation RFEN, the sports council CSD and the technology company Zonyx.

The facility uses the Nagi by Zonyx system: swimmers wear lightweight devices and the system tracks the number of lengths swum, distance, time, pace and the swimmer’s position in real time. The safety benefit is that in case of unusual behaviour — prolonged stillness or a risky movement pattern — the system alerts the lifeguard. It doesn’t replace supervision, only shortens the reaction time. The same data also serves operations: filtration cycles, water changes, filter washing, maintenance and energy use can be managed according to actual occupancy instead of a fixed schedule.

The financing model is also interesting. The investment came to roughly €80,000, with half covered by the RFEN federation and half by the city, supported by the NextGenerationEU programme. This is a Spanish project and a figure for one specific installation, not a price list transferable to a Czech pool — but it shows the rough scale of such an investment and that public pools commonly combine several funding sources.

Collecting data on attendance and user behaviour also brings responsibility for protecting it — the operator must address GDPR compliance, especially for camera systems, loyalty programmes and online bookings tied to personal data. Investment in digitalisation pays off gradually: first bookings and access, only then integration with energy management and advanced operational analytics.

When choosing operations management software, also consider how easily it integrates with existing accounting or attendance systems — separate, unconnected platforms mean duplicate work for staff. A cloud-based solution also makes it easier to manage several facilities from one place.