Mallorca, 24 September

The D3HUB European project held its closing event yesterday at the ParcBit Auditorium, thus bringing to a close years of collaborative work to create a European centre of excellence to support data management in tourist destinations, with the aim of fostering more sustainable, resilient and competitive tourism through the use of data. “An event that has been a success, both in terms of participation and the high calibre of the speakers and content. Data is key to the future of tourism, but it needs to be properly managed and understood in order to inform better decisions and contribute to a more competitive, sustainable and resilient tourism sector,” said Dolores Ordóñez, Director of AnySolution and D3HUB Coordinator.

Along the same lines, Mona Bjorklund, Director of Tourism at the European Commission’s DG MOVE, highlighted that “data is fundamental to better managing tourism flows, driving innovation and strengthening the resilience of the sector, for the benefit of destinations, local communities and tourists”.

For his part, José Manuel Camarero, Regional Secretary for Tourism of the Valencian Community, highlighted “Europe and sustainability” as key priorities in his work, stressing that the event brings these two areas together and highlights the importance of public-private collaboration and joint efforts in shaping the future of the tourism sector.

This event was co-organised by the other project partners: NECSTouR, Empresa Pública para la Gestión del Turismo y del Deporte de Andalucía, ARCTUR, Toerisme Vlaanderen – VISITFLANDER, NIT (New Insights for Tourism), Asesoría Jurídica Balear y el Ministero del Turismo (Italian Ministry of Tourism). Furthermore, D3HUB has been co-funded by the European Union through the Executive Agency for the European Innovation Council and SMEs (EISMEA).

Event programme

The event began with an official welcome from Mona Björklund, Director of Tourism at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), and Dolores Ordóñez, Director of AnySolution. Following this, Ordóñez gave a brief talk in which she highlighted the history of the D3HUB project, as well as its most significant achievements.

Following this, Miguel Rosselló, Director-General for Tourism at Govern de les Illes Balears; Mariano Juan, First Vice-President and Executive Councillor for the Department of Territory, Tourism Planning, Mobility, Road Infrastructure and the Fight against Unlicensed Practice at Consell de Ibiza; and Guillem Ginard, Councillor for Tourism at Consell de Mallorca, gave a presentation in which they outlined all the measures their institutions are taking to promote sustainable tourism on the islands.

Then, the project’s findings were then presented. Speakers included Bart Neus, Researcher at KU Leuven and Toerisme Vlaanderen, who spoke about the design of the D3HUB support process; Rieka Oldsen, Research Assistant at NIT, who explained the capacity-building work carried out in the destinations through the D3HUB Academy; Ana Moniche, Head of the Department of European Projects and International Networks at Turismo y Deporte de Andalucía, who was responsible for presenting the project’s dashboards and indicators; Juan Ortells, Director of Innovation at AnySolution, who was responsible for explaining the D3HUB control panel; Urska Starc-Peceny, Director of Innovation at Arctur, who outlined the measures taken to promote smarter interpretation through AI; Daniel Iglesias, Director of Research at NECSTOUR, who outlined how the proposed model was tested in the pilot destinations; and Alessia Moroni, Staff Member at the Directorate-General for Tourism Promotion, Innovation and Investment at the Italian Ministry of Tourism, who was tasked with demonstrating the validation of the approach and the preparations for the next step.

Following this, Ulf Sonntag, Managing Director at NIT; Lucía Leonardi, representative of the Department of Crafts, Trade, Promotion, Sport and Tourism for the province of Trento (Italy); David Randuška, collaborator at Czech Tourism; Hanna Kouri, CEO of Lapland North Destinations; and Jaume Mata, Head of Tourism Sustainability at Visit Valencia, shared their experiences during the project’s pilot phase. The event continued with a session dedicated to the process ranging from data discovery to deriving insights from that data, featuring contributions from Urska Starc-Peceny; Polona Černič, Business Intelligence & Research Analyst at Ljubljana Tourism; Vlaho Margaretic, Senior Tourism Advisor Specialist for the city of Dubrovnik; Guillermo Rodríguez, Director of Marketing and Communications at Ayuntamiento de Ibiza; and y José Manuel Camarero, Regional Secretary for Tourism at Comunitat Valenciana.

The afternoon began with a round-table discussion focused on showcasing other projects with which there have been synergies and complementarities, such as DEPLOYTOUR, FACILITATE, SMART CAPITAL, PANTOUR and FUTourAlliances. Speakers included Dolores Ordóñez; Corné Dijkmans, Head of Research and Business Innovation at Breda University of Applied Sciences; Sandra Bumbar-Malchow, Director of Client Services and International Communications and Head of the European Office at Scholz&Friends; and Misa Labarile, policy officer and head of the future European Sustainable Tourism Strategy at the European Commission (DG MOVE).

Next, John Fitzgibbon, Managing Director of NECSTOUR; Klaus Ehrlich, Secretary-General of RuralTour; Camille François, Project Coordinator at CityDNA; and Tim Fairhurst, Chief Executive of ETOA, provided a forum to showcase their networks. The event concluded with a round-table discussion moderated by Misa Labarile, with the participation of representatives from the project partners. During the discussion, the next steps were outlined and the future direction of the project was explained.

Contact:
Project coordinator: dom@anysolution.eu
Communication: rpozas@anysolution.eu; jsanchez@anysolution.eu