On 28 April, NECSTouR Vice-President Torrent, joined the General Assembly of HOTREC in Prague. He brought an overview on how NECSTouR is accelerating the European Tourism Recovery through the implementation of the Tourism Transition Pathway and other strategies on sustainable tourism, in front of the representatives of the umbrella Association of Hotels, Restaurants, Pubs and Cafes in Europe.

In the context of the current recovery of our sector from the Covid-19 pandemic, NECSTouR is fostering a broad interregional knowledge exchange among our members to improve the destinations’ resilience.

We base our action on the implementation of the Tourism Transition Pathway developed by the European Commission and other strategies in progress towards and based on sustainable tourism principles.

But we cannot do this alone: Hotels and Restaurants are the key players for our tourism Regional Authorities to develop and implement the new tourism model of our destinations.

Mr Patrick Torrent, NECSTouR Vice-President, Executive Director of the Catalan Tourist Board

Working together to help the sector bounce back

Mr Torrent presented common actions between the NECSTouR Regional members and European Hotels and Restaurants, around the three main actions of NECSTouR:

• Tourism of Tomorrow Lab is the new department of NECSTouR to support DMOs on using data for making better data-driven decisions. Hotels and Restaurants are invited to cooperate for the Digitalisation and innovation of local businesses.
• “Better Places to Live, Better Places to Visit” is a collective commitment on balancing the tourism businesses, the visitors and residents of a territory, where also hotels and restaurants can contribute for the wellbeing of the permanent and temporary residents.
• The Climate Action Plan that NECSTouR is developing to support members in their  journey to carbon net zero, relies on the know-how and contribution of hotels and restaurants towards the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency of our sector and our territories.

A broad exchange with the HOTREC members followed this presentation. It focused on how short-rental services affect Tourism – through its Tourism of Tomorrow Lab, NECSTouR is delivering consultancy services for its members and helping them to find solutions based on available data - and initiatives to deal with skills shortage in Europe – several NECSTouR Regions are part of the European Pact for Skills and they see that as an opportunity to reskill and upskill  their tourism workforce, in cooperation with local Hotel and Restaurant associations.

Ms Valentina Superti, Director, on Tourism at the European Commission, Mr Istvàn Ujelhy, member of the European Parliament, Mr Willie Walsh, IATA Director General, HOTREC authorities and members were part of the debate.

Reinforcing the NECSTouR cooperation with Czech Members

Accompanied by the NECSTouR Membership Manager, Mr Torrent took advantage of his presence in Prague to pay a visit to three academic members of NECSTouR and establish new synergies and cooperation with local academic and Regional authorities.

• Meeting with Prague University of Economics and Business
• Meeting with Prague University of Economics and Business
• Meeting with Ambis.Vysoká škola