Stopping seeing each other as rivals in the search for the largest number of foreign visitors and fostering cooperation between countries in tourism is one of the proposals that have been put forward this Tuesday in Barcelona to promote the recovery of the sector internationally. Within the framework of the debates raised at the Future of Tourism World Summit, organized by the Advanced Leadership Foundation, the INCYDE Foundation of the Chambers of Commerce of Spain and the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the tourism ministers of more than a dozen countries have called for more collaboration and shared rules between territories to bring afloat an economic activity severely punished by the pandemic crisis and which accounts for almost 11% of global GDP.
The future must be cooperative and more sustainable, all participants argued when explaining the current situation of the tourism sector and what measures they are applying to recover visitors. They advocate for integrating destinations and working with large providers to gain competitiveness and profitability.
From Greece to Laos or Myanmar, passing through Panama or Jordan, to name a few, all countries have argued that it is necessary to reinvent tourism to make the pandemic an opportunity that guarantees the viability of the sector and have agreed on the need to promote digitalization, deseasonalization and diversification of tourist areas, profit from natural resources and biodiversity, and promote public-private collaborations, among other aspects. In the case of European states, their representatives have insisted that the European Next Generation funds are a great option to recover infrastructures, invest in adapting them with sustainability criteria and digitalizing them.
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Fernando Valdés, also participated in the debate, who called for public-private funds to make tourism "more profitable" and explained that, to achieve more sustainable tourism, it is necessary to "deseasonalize" and "diversify travel" ---which in the case of Spain involves including inland destinations for foreign travelers---, in addition to including "the entire tourism fabric, including small and medium-sized companies" which he encouraged to integrate to gain dimension.
For his part, the host of the event, the president of the INCYDE Foundation of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce, José Luis Bonet, has considered that one of the bases "of success" for the recovery of tourism will be public-private collaboration and has insisted on "protecting talent" which, in the case of Spain, he believes requires a State pact for education.
Despite the signs of hope, the forum has also highlighted that the current context of the pandemic still shows many uncertainties about tourism in the short and medium term, and that the low level of vaccination in some areas of the planet is still a brake on the massive mobility of travelers —as expressed especially by members from Latin American or African countries—.
Public-private collaboration is another aspect to promote to recover the sectorIn this regard, the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili, has shown optimism and assured that the year 2022 "is going to be completely different and normal" for tourismPololikashvili has insisted that leadership, solidarity, and cooperation will be necessary for this new stage and that "multilateral development partners, development assistance, and help to integrate new business ideas will be needed," thus joining the joint demand of all countries.
Undoubtedly, these aspects will be reflected in the final manifesto of the Future of Tourism World Summit, which will be announced tomorrow, to be called the Barcelona Declaration, at the end of the conference, to disseminate solutions to the challenges posed by tourism worldwide after covid-19, develop collaboration systems so that this crisis becomes an opportunity for shared progress, and contribute to the global economic reactivation of the sector.