From 2-4 November 2022 the Tourism Innovation Summit will take place  in Seville, Spain. As partner of the event, NECSTouR is organising both a workshop together with the European Travel Commission and a workshop under the Regional Councillors Agenda.

About the Event

Tourism Innovation Summit 2022 is the global summit of innovation and technology for the travel and tourism sector, the place to be for any tourism professional that is aimed to understand how to face and perform better the daily challenges, get a better look on new consumer habits, create better experiences, discover new trends and solutions to transform their organization or learn from others travel strategies some insights to adapt to itself.

Participate at Tourism Innovation Summit 2022 from 2 to 4 of November in Seville (Spain) and be part of the conversation of the New Horizons for Tourism Tech.

• Overall Agenda

NECSTouR Workshops on 3 November

Morning session: NECSTouR-ETC programme in the Main Auditorium: 

10.30 – 10.50 Shaping the future of European tourism destinations

The European Travel Commission and NECSTouR gather 35 NTOs and 41 DMOs leading the transition to sustainability in both tourism marketing and management across European destinations. In this panel, European tourism leaders will identify and debate the common issues and opportunities for the national and regional tourism authorities in the rapidly changing post-COVID environment. They will also provide forward-looking insights and recommendations for achieving sustainable tourism development and reflect on a fundamental question: ‘What kind of support do destinations need to achieve their sustainability targets?’. 

The workshop will be moderated by Ms Lola Uña Cardenas, Senior Advisor, Global Tourism Forum. Amongst the speakers:

• Mr Luís Araújo, President of the European Travel Commission and President of Turismo de Portugal
• Mr Arturo Bernal Bergua President of NECSTouR and Regional Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport for Tourism of Andalusia

10.50 – 11.30 Building tourism resilience to the geo-political environment

Post-covid recovery, geo-political tensions, rise of energy costs, labour shortages...these are some of the challenges for Europe today. With this session we aim at understanding how European tourism destinations are tackling these challenges now and what kind of solutions they foresee to build future tourism resilience, for which the EU support is needed. Destinations’ leaders will share insights on how they manage unforeseen risks, adapt to changes, stay focused on sustainability and implement innovative solutions to support local tourism in times of crises. 

Institutional Remarks:

• MEP István Ujhelyi, Member of the European Parliament

Moderated by:

• Mr Eduardo Santander, CEO, European Travel Commission

Speakers:

• Mr Felipe Formariz, Deputy Director General for Strategy and Services to Tourist Sector, Turespaña - Instituto de Turismo,
• Ms Kristiina Hietasaari, Senior Director, Visit Finland - Business Finland Ltd,
• Ms Morena Diazzi, General Director on Knowledge Economy, Employment and Enterprises, Emilia Romagna Region

11.30 – 12.00 Driving the tourism governance to tomorrow 

This session tackles both challenges and enablers for destinations when it comes to developing an alternative tourism governance model which is inclusive, regenerative, value-driven and builds resilience. Destinations’ leaders will exchange visions on how they are transforming the tourism governance to bring economic and social wellbeing to their communities through the values of travel and tourism. This should be a compromise between citizens, businesses, governments and temporary residents.

Moderated by:

• Mr Peter De Wilde, Chief Executive, Visit Flanders

Speakers:

• Ms Dominique Maulin-Diabira, Director Atout France, Spain and Portugal
• Mr Patrick Torrent, Executive Director at Catalan Tourist Board

12.45 – 13.15  Strategies enabling tourism innovation

The aim of this session is to reflect on how to turn visions into action for tourism to drive sustainable development: improving economies, preserving local cultures and biodiversity and offering a more qualitative destination experience. Innovative and regenerative strategies based on sustainability values will be benchmarked in order to share lessons and challenges ahead in the pathway of building better places to live, better places to visit.

Moderated by:

• Ms Misa Labarile, Policy Officer Tourism, Directorate General Internal Market, Industries, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission

Speakers:

• Mr Vincent Nijs, Chief Strategist, Visit Flanders: “Travel to Tomorrow",
• Ms Marta Domènech, Director General of Tourism, Catalonia Government: the Catalonia Plan for Responsible Tourism

Afternoon session: NECSTouR programme in the Auditorium 1: 

15.30 – 16.15: Challenges and enablers for Destinations to uptake digitalisations

This session is about providing concrete solutions to enable destinations and tourism SMEs to become more resilience, optimise commercialisation processes, deliver a more effective marketing, turn data into intelligence and compete globally by embracing digitalisation. It gathers an interesting combination of examples: One European project, a tourism business support national organisation and a regional smart specialisation strategy tackling tourism, moderated by an experience private player in the field of tourism innovation and measurability.

Moderated by:

• Dr Urška Starc Peceny, Chief Innovation Officer, Head of Tourism 4.0., Arctur

Speakers:

• Ms Blanca Cros, Head of European Projects, Catalan Tourist Board and Lead partner of Turbit Project: Tourbit Project,
• Ms Morena Diazzi, General Director on Knowledge Economy, Employment and Enterprises, Emilia Romagna Region: Emilia Romagna Tourism and Smart Specialisation Strategy,
• Ms Ana Moniche, Senior Tourism Data Expert, Tourism of Tomorrow Lab, Andalusia Tourism Board

16.15 - 17.00 European funding for the tourism transition

Several EU funding programmes provide support to tourism and its stakeholders in their efforts to become greener, digital and more resilient, and on the top of this, we are living a very relevant momentum with the Next Generation recovery funds. This session tackles the main opportunities to fund the tourism transition towards sustainability.

Moderated by:

• Ms Nagore Uresandi, CEO, In2Destination

Speakers:

• Mr Carlos Romero, Director, SEGITTUR talking about The Next Generation funds as an opportunity for transforming our destinations
• Ms Cristina Nuñez, Director, NECSTouR talking about The handbook on the ERDF & Recovery funds for the sustainable tourism in the Mediterranean
• Mr Josep Rodríguez, Responsible for International Relations, Tourism Department, Barcelona Provincial Council talking about Opportunities for tourism projects in EU transnational programmes

17.00 – 17.15 Learning from the pioneers: The digital transformation of Slovenian tourism 2022-2026

In recent years, the Slovenian Tourist Board has taken important steps in the field of digitalization of promotion, marketing and communication to reply to the new digital-related habits of visitors, the need for a faster digital transformation of the entire tourism industry, including strengthening the skills of tourism employees in this area. This is why the Slovenian Tourist Board developed the strategy for the digital transformation of Slovenian tourism 2022-2026 closely intertwined with the  overall tourism strategy (Slovenian Tourism Strategy 2022-2028).

Speaker:

• Ms Aleksandra Jerebic Topolovec, Head of Dept. Content Digital Marketing at Slovenian Tourist Board

17.15-18.00 Collaborative learning through Tourism of Tomorrow Lab DMOs (in Spanish)

The Tourism of Tomorrow is the new department of NECSTouR with the aim of turning Destination Management and Marketing Organisations into data-driven organisations. This session is a collaborative learning moment about how the ToT Lab tourism-data-specialised team contributes to improve statistics and indicators for tourism through personalised consultancy: This means methodologies specifically designed to solve destinations’ concrete problems when it comes to measurability, including recommendations and guidance for those DMOs about specific actions for implementation.

Moderated by:

• José Luis Córdoba, Director of the Tourism of Tomorrow Lab and the Andalucia Lab

Speakers:

• Mr Mario Villar, Director of Tourism Intelligence, INVAT.TUR, Valencia Region,
• Mr. Patxi Saenz, Head of Department of Tourism Products and Territorial Sustainability, Direction General of Tourism, Trade and Consume, Navarra Region,
• Mr Damià Serrano, Experience Marketing & Research Director, Catalan Tourist Board
• Mr. Moisés Rubiño, Director of Department Digital Marketing and big data

Special Deal for the NECSTouR Members

The organisers of the conference are offering to the members of NECSTouR a Gold Pass, valued at 795 Euros.

• Ask for the Gold pass

 The Gold Pass is for NECSTouR members only and it cannot be shared with others. It gives you free access to: 

• the showroom area

• all the program of conferences and keynotes of the Tourism Innovation Global Summit

• top keynotes and inspiring supersessions in our Main Auditorium

• the vertical forums for each industry segment (Destinations of the Future, Hospitality Tech Forum, Travel & Mobility, Distribution Channels, Business Travel, MICE, Activities & Attractions, and Leisure & Culture)

• the professional agenda that interest you the most (Ministerial Agenda, Tourism Councelors Agenda, Tourism General Managers Agenda, CMO's Agenda, Digital & CIO's Agenda, DMC's Agenda, Revenue Managers Agenda,...)

• Touristech Startup Fest

• VIP Lounge

• the event app