The transformation of tourism through smart management

The COVID-19 has had repercussions in all society and tourism has been one of the most affected sectors which need to transform. Smart management of tourism will be a fundamental element to rethink the future of the sector and the companies that integrate it.

In this sense, sharing and analyzing experiences and solutions is fundamental to create synergies and get to know good practices in the field of Smart Tourism. A concept that CETT understands as the integration of tourists, residents, companies, and destinations through efficient management systems and technology, innovation, and knowledge to achieve more sustainable, accessible, and quality tourism.

With this objective, the III CETT Smart Tourism Congress Barcelona will deal during the Professional Day with questions such as the management of companies and destinations because of the impact generated by the COVID-19 or the cases of success of reference cities in the intelligent management of tourism.

Leaders of smart tourism

The first topic of Professional Day is to deepen and analyze cases of success and good practices in the implementation and development of management initiatives to meet the challenges of Smart Tourism.

Representatives from cities such as Helsinki (Finland) or Ljubljana (Slovakia), leaders in terms of intelligent tourism management, will share initiatives and projects developed over the last few years concerning the dimensions on which Smart Tourism is based: accessibility, sustainability, digitalization, and culture, and creativity.

Security and trust, key factors for the reactivation of tourism

Through the perspective of communication, marketing, mobility, security, trust, and health, the session wants to find answers, through a smart gaze, on how to manage the impact of COVID-19 on tourism, hotels, and gastronomy. This is how we intend to address what the best way to restore consumer confidence is to encourage the rebirth of tourism businesses. To achieve such recovery of companies and tourist destinations there should be an emphasis on innovative strategies and the reinvention and reformulation of processes or on the use of technologies that contribute to the recovery of companies and tourist destinations.

Digital applications for the travel sector, 5G connectivity, recovery of consumer’s demand, experience gamification, income management, investments, or new mobility are some of the issues that will be formulated by the experts and that the sector will have to consider in the short, medium, and long term.

The session will include speakers such as Manel Casals, General Director of the Barcelona Hotel Association; Dr. Jordi Serra, Researcher at the Institute for Biodiversity Research (UB); Pablo Soto, Innovation Manager at Vodafone; Francesc Vila, Manager of Tourism Services at the Barcelona Provincial Council, and Dr. Josep Mª Fontanet, Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Research (UB). Joan Miquel Capell, Head of the Prevention and Security Department of the Barcelona Provincial Council, who will share their experiences and visions of the future of tourism.

The III CETT Smart Tourism Congress Barcelona will bring together on the 11th and 12th of November experts linked to intelligent tourism to address the experiences and solutions that are key to meeting the challenges of Smart Tourism from a multidisciplinary perspective. The congress is an example of CETT's commitment to the generation and transmission of expert knowledge to add value to the sector and reflects the close relationship that CETT has with the business world, which allows it to integrate the training it provides to the needs of companies in the sector.