Last week, the 9th Maspalomas Costa Canaria International Tourism Forum took place , focusing on digitalization, sustainability, and connectivity. At the end of this post, readers will find several press sources with summaries of the presentations and panel discussions, as well as links to videos from both days of the conference. In this brief post, I've extracted and highlighted 10 key quotes from the sessions, although many more conclusions can be drawn from these two intense days.
(1) “We have to see Tourism as an industry and not as a sector” (Jafar Jafari)
As the founder of the Annals of Tourism Research, co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Tourism, and founding president of the International Academy for Tourism Studies emphasized at the beginning of his panel discussion, it is necessary to view tourism as an industry, as this reveals it as a series of sectors that must collaborate with one another. This is undoubtedly the most important lesson the pandemic has taught us: the resurgence of tourism to the forefront of the economy. In the case of the Canary Islands, it has become clear that tourism represents much more than the 35% of GDP or 40% of employment typically attributed to it. If we include the induced effects, this figure rises to over 80% of employment, as highlighted in Promotur's new tourism awareness campaigns. Ultimately, tourism is everyone's responsibility (see more in the related post on this blog: “Tourism Polyculture” ).
“We all live from Tourism”, text on a stone located precisely 300 meters from the Meloneras Congress Palace where the Forum was held. Despite the poor aesthetics of this “architectural barrier” on an urban road, whoever posted the message did not know how accurate it was.
(2) Accessibility: “I want to leave the hotel and have an accessible culture, accessible beaches and accessible transportation” (Miguel Ángel Déniz)
Miguel Ángel Dénz, president of ONCE in the Canary Islands
The president of the ONCE Territorial Council in the Canary Islands called for improved universal accessibility in tourist destinations to enhance the quality of life not only for residents but also for visitors with disabilities or reduced mobility. Déniz stated that it is important to extend accessibility to all aspects of life and not limit it to urban and architectural barriers in accommodation: “An accessible hotel is positive, but I don't come to a hotel to have an adapted room and stay there without going out. I want to go out and experience accessible culture, accessible beaches, and accessible transportation .” He therefore called for a “defined and clear” strategy to promote universal accessibility in the tourism sector.
Indeed, private spaces (e.g., hotels) have adapted to accessibility standards, but public spaces have not done so to a sufficient extent. I hope planners take note of this message , as accessibility in tourist infrastructure has been a pending issue for several decades—a paradox considering that our largest and most prominent tourist segment in winter often has a disability or mobility issues.
In addition to the traditional infrastructural deficiencies, such as the lack of elevators to the beach or public toilets, San Bartolomé de Tirajana has lost services during the pandemic, such as hammocks and beach bars.
Little progress has been made in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana in this regard, without having taken advantage of the year of Zero Tourism to address any visible mobility improvement, such as the construction of an elevator or mechanical beach to the beach in the area of the old slide, which was acquired more than a year ago. What's more, there are even setbacks in the municipality's mobility, such as reduced night lighting in the tourist center and the loss of the blue flag on the beaches of San Agustín and Meloneras, precisely due to mobility aspects. It is also significant that Déniz has emphasized public transportation, calling for “low-floor buses.”
(3) Connectivity: “Alternative fuels will reduce aircraft emissions by 80-100%” (Javier Gándara)
The president of the Airline Association (ALA) delivered a positive message for destinations like the Canary Islands that depend exclusively on air transport: “ Aviation accounts for approximately 3% of global emissions, but it is where decarbonization is most difficult, as the technologies to facilitate it do not yet exist. We have a roadmap to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, but there are short-, medium-, and long-term actions to be taken. In the long term, in 15 or 20 years, there will be an alternative to kerosene propulsion, which could be hydrogen, but in the meantime, there are measures that can be taken and are already being taken, such as the Single European Airspace, which could save 10% of emissions from all commercial aviation in Europe and is simply a matter of political will. Then there are alternative aviation fuels (AAFs), which are already certified to be mixed at 50% with conventional kerosene in aircraft, and in some cases up to 100%. We shouldn't be ashamed of flying, but rather make flying sustainable .”
(4) Digitization: “It is not having a lot of data, it is knowing how to analyze it” (Antonio López de Ávila)
The president and CEO of Tourism Data Driven Solutions (TDDS) placed special emphasis on training for public and private companies in data analysis: “ Our biggest problem in various administrations is that we see that officials don't know how to analyze data, how to filter and interpret it, and how to make decisions based on that data.” Antonio López commented on the importance of this training being integrated into university degrees and that “people should graduate from any degree program already knowing how to analyze data .” He therefore predicts a significant increase in job competitiveness for those who also hold a master's degree in data science. Training has been the most cross-cutting theme of the congress, as we will see in the next section:
(5) “The key to competitiveness is in training” (several)
Staff training was a recurring theme in virtually every panel discussion and presentation. In addition to the previous example, Gerrit Kruger (Manager of Chameleon Strategies) highlighted staff training as a cornerstone of future micro-segmentation strategies, emphasizing the importance of developing staff who can build customer loyalty and connect with the local community. According to this expert, only satisfied staff will create, on the one hand, a satisfied community, and on the other hand, satisfied customers. At the same panel discussion, Jafar Jafari concluded his presentation by adding several more for the new tourism landscape to the classic "3S" of holiday tourism (sun, sea, sand): safety, security, satisfaction, and sympathy (the latter focusing on personal interaction). Meanwhile, Miguel Ángel Deniz (President of ONCE in the Canary Islands), speaking in the context of customer service for people with disabilities, stressed the need for staff who can "identify the needs of each individual, which is sometimes more important than any construction work."
In this respect, the Canary Islands, with a regional unemployment rate exceeding 20%, cannot continue to fall behind or import foreign workers for the tourism sector, precisely where it should, by its very nature, have some of the best training in the world. In this regard, it is more urgent than ever to adapt the content of university tourism training programs to the current reality and, especially, to restructure the content and methodology of public vocational training, striving to bring it closer to the undeniably effective German model (see on this blog: “The need for greater duality in Canary Islands vocational training” ).
In short: Education is the guarantee of employability for our young people, it's the way to reduce immigration from other countries to fill local jobs (and contain population growth, which increases pressure on the housing market), and it's the basic tool for tourism competitiveness in the era of micro-segmentation; it's our true "economic vaccine" against the crisis. Reason enough to start taking it seriously in the Canary Islands.
(6) “The sustainable development of a destination is between 'overcapacity' and 'undercapacity'” (Tanja Mihalic)
The lecturer and researcher from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) alluded to the situations of overtourism experienced by some tourist destinations around 2017 (e.g., Amsterdam, Barcelona, or Dubrovnik), and then contrasted them with the opposite situation of zero tourism or undertourism. In her analysis, she differentiated between the four different carrying capacities of a tourist destination: economic, ecological, socio-psychological, and socio-political (see image), giving special importance to the socio-psychological capacity, where it is necessary to find a balance between “the right of residents to have tourism contribute to their quality of life, the right of travelers to receive a quality experience at the destination, and the right of the industry to have the opportunity to do business” ( see Tourinews, December 10, 2021 ).
Tanja Mihalic during her presentation
Unfortunately, at this table the debate planned a posteriori had to be cut, which would certainly have been interesting, since this topic is especially complex and requires much more depth. It is a strategic management issue that affects all areas of planning and includes, for example, issues such as infrastructural capacities (see saturations on the TFE and GC highways) or residential housing capacities (see pressure on the real estate market due to the anarchic growth of vacation rentals, among other issues). It is really a shame not to have been able to discuss “the fine print” of these headlines with international experts.
(7) Circular economy: “Through QR the customer can visualize the traceability of the food” (Aina Canaleta)
In the context of the circular economy table, the Director of TIRME (Office of Circular Economy and Sustainable Development) showed the progress in Mallorca of various circular economy processes, including the collaborative and technological platform FINHAVA, which “allows us to trace the path of food, calculate their carbon footprint and the reduction of greenhouse gases, measure the energy they produce and evaluate the volume of food waste they generate to return it to the earth.
Aina Canaleta, in her presentation of the FINHAVA platform
It is expected that these circular processes in food will soon be integrated as key pieces within the tourism sustainability strategies of all destinations (see in this context: “NutriHotel incorporates three CO2e variables”).
(8) Economy: “The pent-up demand can be an important boost for recovery” (JR Díez Guijarro)
For the ninth year running, the Director of Economics and International Markets at CaixaBank Research presented the latest economic data, allowing us to look to 2022 with “moderate optimism.” On the one hand, the economist explained that Spanish families have saved €45.000 billion during the pandemic and that “this pent-up demand could provide a significant boost to the recovery of the Spanish tourism sector in 2022.” On the other hand, he predicted that economic growth in the Eurozone will be “very dynamic,” highlighting Germany (see more details of the presentation in Xavier Canalis’s article on Hosteltur.com ).
(9) “The sun and the beach are also nature” (Pere Granados)
Although it may seem obvious, as the mayor and president of the Salou Tourism Board reminds us, sun and beach is a product of nature. For some time now, sun and sand denouncers, including several tourism planners, have mistakenly identified sustainability with “green tourism” and that is not the point. Sun and beach will continue to be the main workhorse of tourism products, as the sole or main component (in mixed products), and the current challenge is to make sun and beach mass tourism more sustainable, which is a tourist typology. which has not declined in terms of its demand. It is time to eliminate the erroneous negative associations attributed to both sun and beach and mass tourism, since we have precisely built an industry based on the volume of sun and beach visitors. Whether we like it or not, that is our livelihood and, therefore, the challenge is to make mass tourism sustainable. Sustainability and mass tourism are not mutually exclusive.
Post-Covid health trio: relaxation, movement, and nutrition, all in contact with nature. Several hotels have taken these factors into account in their renovations during the pandemic (source: “The Post-Covid Tourist” ).
(10) “The new tourist has the same body, but the mind is different, it has a different programming” (Jafar Jafari)
The tourist, although they may seem the same, has been reprogrammed in their habits and behaviors, just as the “sustainability” discussed before the pandemic is no longer the same as what we talk about now. According to Jafari, “tourism will return, but it will be a different kind of tourism.” (Some new consumption habits of the post-Covid tourist can be seen, for example, in the masterclass on this website, “The Post-Covid Tourist,” from July 2021).
I take this opportunity to congratulate Professor Jafari on his appointment as the first Doctor Honoris Causa of the ULPGC in the field of tourism, an event that was held this week in the Paraninfo of the ULPGC (and also my congratulations to the ULPGC for having researchers like Jafar Jafari among its scientific collaborators).
Jafar Jafari, during the appointment as Honorary Doctor of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) on 13.12.21