Our Director was invited to moderate a session called “a Sustainable Future for Travel & Tourism”. At this occasion, she exchanged with Claudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Member of the European Parliament; Peter Gerber, CEO Brussels Airlines; Marie-Caroline Laurent, Director General Europe of CLIA, and Willy Walsh, Director General IATA. By bringing together a combination of private and public players, the panellists discussed how to enable the transition of our respective industries to sustainability while remaining competitive at the same time.

Airlines companies emphasised the big variations and differences that exist in the state of play of their sector, worldwide but also within Europe. The airline and cruise industry are committed to the objective to reduce 50% of their emissions by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050, particularly with technical innovations as a way of achieving these goals.

On the side of the Parliament, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar argued that “as co-legislators, we must work on a balanced and intelligent legislative framework that encourages these investments and this transition and a level playing field for the industry. Otherwise, we will only create more difficulties for businesses and, in particular, for citizens.”

NECSTouR Director was also invited to give her opinion regarding “women leadership in tourism” in a session with Yulia Stark, President of European Women’s Association (EWA); Elena Kountoura, Member of the European Parliament and Jeannette Ceja, TV Host and Travel Journalist.

On September 6th, NECSTouR was invited to take part in the Global Tourism Forum Leaders Summit at the Radisson Collection Hotel, Grand Place in Brussels. Organised by the World Tourism Forum Institute, the theme for this year’s edition was “Investment, Connectivity and Hospitality”.

Context

The full day Summit provided a unique platform for strategic exchanges on how the public and private sectors can continue to work together to address the challenges and opportunities faced by the Travel & Tourism ecosystem in the post-pandemic world. The event brought together European Commissioners, MEPs, CEOs of major airlines, hotels, technology providers as well as European destinations and Travel & Tourism value chain European and International Associations to raise and discuss the most important matters faced by the sector, such as the sector’s vision on smart tourism, the green transition, new trends in mobility; investment models for travel & tourism, sustainability, gender equality or how digitalization & blockchain technologies shape tourism to mention a few.

NECSTouR Participation

Cristina Núñez, managing director of NECSTouR, was invited to moderate a session called “a Sustainable Future for Travel & Tourism”. At this occasion, she exchanged with Claudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Member of the European Parliament; Peter Gerber, CEO Brussels Airlines; Marie-Caroline Laurent, Director General Europe of CLIA and Willy Walsh, Director General IATA. By bringing together a combination of private and public players, the panelists discussed how to enable the transition of our respective industry to sustainability while remaining competitive same time.

Airlines companies emphasized the big variations and differences that exist on the state of play of their sector in the world but also inside of Europe. The airline and cruise industry are committed to the objective to reduce 50% of their emission by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050, and require investment in technology and sustainable aviation fuels, as well as a regulatory framework that guarantees a competitive level playing field and fair taxation policies, and the political commitment to make possible the European Single Sky, as the main enablers to achieve these goals.

On the side of the Parliament, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar argued that “as co-legislators, we must work on a balanced and intelligent legislative framework that encourages these investments and this transition and a level playing field for the industry. Otherwise, we will only create more difficulties for businesses and, in particular, for citizens.”

Cristina Núñez was also invited to give her opinion regarding “women leadership in tourism” in a session with Yulia Stark, President of EWA European Women’s Association; Elena Kountoura, Member of the European Parliament and Jeannette Ceja, TV Host and Travel Journalist.

She applauded the initiative Women Leading Tourism, which offers a forum for dialogue about ways to empower the tourism female workforce into leadership positions, which is currently very low. Cristina defended the career opportunities that the tourism industry can potentially offer to attract the talent needed to regenerate the destinations’ governance: sustainability manager, chief strategist, tourism intelligence expert, tourism data scientist, marketing director, are the jobs of today and tomorrow besides the well-known “front desk”.

Positive discrimination and company’s’ plans to achieve gender balance are certainly needed although this requires a balanced approach to avoid targeting “numbers” and not “talented people” and should be driven by education and communication campaigns about the benefits of employment diversity in tourism and promote the behavioural change that is needed. She concluded by calling on the European Parliament and the relevant associations to promote good cases of leadership gender balance in tourism and the need to provide more research-based evidence and monitoring of the progress being made.