Madrid,
Spain, 16 October 2018 - The UNWTO Conference on City Breaks: Creating
Innovative Tourism Experiences (15-16 October 2018) concluded today in
Valladolid, Spain, with a call for cities to become smart tourism
destinations, where tourism governance and the digital economy mesh
together to offer travellers diverse and authentic experiences.
The
conference brought together tourism leaders from the public and private
sectors to analyse how to respond to the growing trend of city breaks
as leisure experiences. They concluded that public-private partnerships,
the inclusion of local communities and the creation of smart
destinations are crucial for urban destinations to gain the knowledge
and define the policies they need in order to respond to the new demands
of hyper-connected and hyper-informed tourists.
“We must understand the evolution of
tourists towards greater sustainability and inclusiveness, using new
technological tools,” said Jaime Cabal, Deputy Secretary-General of the
World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). “Creativity and innovation are
needed when designing the experiences they are increasingly demanding.”
The Councillor for Culture and Tourism of
Valladolid, Ana Maria Redondo, echoed this call, adding: “We need a
better understanding of the fundamentals behind the current demand for
city break experiences. Smart destination tools are our means to obtain
this knowledge.”
The
Deputy Director-General for Tourism Development and Sustainability of
the Ministry of Tourism of Spain, Ruben Lopez Pulido, suggested that
cities and all destinations change their models of tourism development
to respond not only the most demanding tourists, but also to the rise of
the digital and knowledge economy. “Being a smart destination is not
just a label, but a process towards the comprehensive transformation of
destinations, while always aiming at the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals,” he said.
Speakers at the conference included
Dieter Hardt-Stremayr, President of European Cities Marketing and CEO of
the Graz Tourism Office in Austria, who described what he considered
key challenges for the growth of city breaks: transportation issues,
seasonality, and the dispersion of tourism demand within a city and over
time. “Our main challenge is to attract visitors to come right at this
moment. To overcome it destination managers should focus on parts of the
tourism offer that are ‘temporary’,” he concluded.
The main conclusions of the conference
referred to urban tourism governance models. Participants highlighted
that, with the growth of high-speed, low-cost transportation links that
provide more and more visitors with access to city breaks, city
destinations must respond by prioritizing investments that benefit
residents and tourists alike.
They
also concluded that with the technological advances that allow the
creation of smart destinations, destination management organizations
must shift their focus from only promoting the experiences available for
tourists in cities, to managing urban tourism in all its complexity.
For their part, tourism policy makers should use smart destination tools
to study the impact of tourism on the profitability and sustainability
of a city, and place the destination at the centre of policy changes.
These conclusions will be taken into account in the UNWTO work plan on
urban tourism.
The
Conference was organized by the UNWTO in collaboration with the City
Council of Valladolid and the marketing agency MADISON, an Affiliate
Member of the UNWTO. Other speakers included representatives from Madrid
Destino, San Sebastián Turismo & Convention Bureau, Ljubljana
Tourist Board, Turin Convention Bureau, Lisbon Tourism Observatory,
Municipality of Alba lulia (Romania), Google, TripAdvisor, Basque
Culinary Center, World Heritage Cities of Spain, AMFHORT, European
Historical Association of Thermal Cities, Innova Tax Free,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Thinking Heads, Segittur, Civitatis,
Authenticitys and Amadeus, as well as journalists Xavier Canalis of
Hosteltur and Paco Nadal of El Viajero
(El País newspaper).
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