On Thursday 9 June 2022 Cristina Nuñez, NECSTouR Director, and Ana Moniche Bermejo, Senior Analyst, Turismo Andaluz and NECSTouR Tourism of Tomorrow Lab, were pleased to give a keynote address at the Tourism Data Spaces online event "How Can Dataspaces Contribute to the Tourism Development in Europe Through Citizen-Centred Offerings" by Gaia-X, the frontrunner of the European and global democratic approach to digitalisation and data spaces.

View the presentation here

Cristina and Ana intervened on the topic together on "The European Regional Practice for Competitive and Sustainable Tourism", speaking particularly about the experience from NECSTouR's own data department, the Tourism of Tomorrow Lab.

From the Tourism of Tomorrow Lab experience, we have learned that a Tourism Data Space can enhance the sector’s overall competitiveness, resulting in more sustainable tourism practices for the future.

Normalisation of database contents reduces the margin of interpretation and increases the compatibility of different data sources. Interoperability and quality of data are critical, and we are happy to be involved in the development of strategies and associations working in this direction, such as Gaia-X and this Tourism Data Space event.

The event gathered international experts, hospitality practitioners, and tourism representatives to discuss how dataspaces can contribute to the tourism development in Europe through citizen-centred offerings, with a focus on the requirements and the necessity for a secure, decentralised, and civic-oriented European tourism data space.

These experts spoke about future initiatives of the most prestigious tourism destinations, regulations, and architecture for the tourism data space system, with the aim to create an atmosphere of cross-border collaboration that will help to create a sustainable data infrastructure for the tourism industry.