AM VIRTUAL CORNER: Recovering Tourism. Rebuilding Trust. Reinforcing Partnerships
Ion VILCU, Director of the UNWTO Affiliate Members Department, welcomes you to the 42nd UNWTO Affiliate Members Plenary Session
On the occasion of 42nd UNWTO Affiliate Members Plenary Session under the theme of Recovering Tourism. Rebuilding Trust. Reinforcing Partnerships, the Affiliate Members Department have provided UNWTO Affiliate Members with different opportunities to present their valuable work and initiatives to the tourism stakeholders during this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 crisis.
Now more than ever, we need to come together to marshal our combined resources to defeat this global threat and rebuild tourism in a more resilient and sustainable way.
Take a look at the AM Virtual Corner where you can find a lot of interesting initiatives from all around the world, learn about their work and be part of the solution!
Note: The initiatives presented on this page are not endorsed by the UNWTO and are presented here for awareness purposes
Asociación Femenil de Ejecutivas de Empresas Turísticas de la República Mexicana (AFEET)
AFEET Iniciativas durante 2020
Durante la pandemia se establecieron diversas campañas de información y capacitación en línea para mantener informada a la membresía sobre el avance de la pandemia así como también continuar la capacitación primordial para nuestra asociación a través de medios tecnológicos.
For more information contact:
Yarla Covarrubias
CENFOTUR
Strategies against COVID-19: Health protocols for the resumption of tourism activity in Peru
"As part of the Peruvian government's strategy for the gradual and progressive resumption of economic activities, priority was set for the development of protocols with relevant preventive health measures to prevent the spread of the virus during return to tourist operations. In order to achieve an integrated implementation, the development of training activities was included in the strategy, technical assistance and their massive virtual dissemination to the different tourism actors in all tourist activities and regions of the ountry, getting the participation of private actors and local and regional governments. In achievement of this initiative, the development of 17 health protocols was completed, carrying out more than 60 training and technical assistance activities with the participation of more than 9,300 touristic workers and recognition as a country of the WTTC Safe
Travel Seal."
For more information contact: Madelaine Burns
Ente de Turismo de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Big Data for Tourism Recovery
The Tourism Observatory of Buenos Aires launched a Tourism Intelligence System, a new tool for decision-making with more and new information, better visualization and free public access. It is addressed to all tourism stakeholders among which are: Entrepreneurs, Investors and Developers, Hotels, Travel agencies and service providers, Airline and transport companies, Shops and gastronomic establishments, Museums and cultural sites, Congress and convention organizers, Chambers and associations, and Researchers and academic community. This innovative tool is an open platform that democratizes knowledge, making available a huge amount of information in a simple way, including dynamic graphs and interactive maps. This initiative involves the development of new dashboards based on Big Data techniques related to tourism expenditure, visitor satisfaction, tourism mobility and online reviews in gastronomy establishments. Some of these dashboards would allow to identify the tourism purchases in different categories (i.e. gastronomy, cultural activities, shopping) in more than 150 areas throughout the city, including commercial streets and most visited neighbourhoods. The information provided also helps to understand the tourism flows within the city, specifically in different types of events (sports, concerts, cultural) as well in different days of the week. Moreover, visitor satisfaction can be evaluated based on online reviews in more than 800 tourism attractions including museums, theatres, historic buildings, cultural and religious sites, among others.
For more information contact: Federico Esper
Four Communications
Place+ harnesses innovative data-driven insights, expert strategic consultancy and marketing services to provide deeper understanding, analysis, strategy, execution and evaluation for organisations involved in placemaking. Four’s Place+ services improve the value of places that brings together sector expertise across property, tourism, retailing, culture, sport, social purpose, public. Too often, place strategies are created in isolation without wider collaboration or sector knowledge the new Four Place+ service breaks the mould by combining specialist sector experience with innovative insight and smart strategic thinking to improve the value of place. The impact of COVID-19 requires a completely different skill set requiring collaboration with multiple place stakeholders, new research methodologies, audience evaluation and target setting. In travel it has hastened the move for tourist boards to shift from destination marketers to destination managers focused on urgently building back livelihoods for their industry partners and taking stock to ensure they use this time to build a long-term sustainable future for their citizens and visitors.
Examples of services within the new Place+ offerings include a two day “Sustainable Tourism Recovery Workshop” and “Destination Management Training for Marketeers”
Watch the video presentation here
For more information contact: Debbie Hindle
Fundación Mallorca Turisme
Mallorca Safe Tourism
The immediate mobilisation of the tourism sector in the face of the present COVID crisis has been remarkable. The Mallorca tourism industry has participated and been coordinated during all this time, showing tangible technological solutions and protocols for safe stays that are already in place in tourist establishments, on beaches, in cultural and sport events, in tourist places or at the airport itself. On top of that, the island's health infrastructure has shown its strength.
For more information contact: Joan Gaspar Vallori Guayta
ICF
Lanzarote inArt: A Comprehensive Tourism Destination Shared-Value Project
More than ever, after pandemics, consumers reward companies and destinations that display positive values and a tangible commitment to society. The key to this project lies in incorporating the UN Sustainable Development Goals into the tourism value proposition while permeating every tourism activity and all the value chain components with a responsible, sustainable, and inclusive vision.
This means going beyond corporate social responsibility by the sector altogether through a single, powerful project that integrates the tourist in the process. Furthermore, visitors' incorporation into the overall vision allows them to connect with the destination further and amplify the benefits of tourism by creating a positive impact on their trip.
All these actions become, in turn, a powerful element of communication, both for the companies involved and for the tourism positioning of Lanzarote, as they contribute to differentiation while enhancing visitors' loyalty, employment, investor confidence, and hope.
After COVID-19, Lanzarote gets into the path towards a faster recovery.
For more information contact: Jared Harckham
Instituto Distrital de Turismo de Bogotá
Plan de reactivación mitigación, y recuperación del sector turismo en Bogotá.
El Plan de Recuperación está en función de escenarios que en general dependen de la relación que existe entre los planes económicos de recuperación y la convivencia o no con el covid-19 a partir de la vacuna o las medidas que prevengan su contagio. De igual modo en función de las medidas gubernamentales y los brotes de reinfección que se puedan presentar a partir de apertura de fronteras y sectores escalonados de la economía.
For more information contact: Fabiola Garcia
IQM
Feel IQM works based on UNWTO guidelines and provides integral quality management.
In Feel IQM program: we are increasing and strengthening public-private partnerships, and measuring the elements of sustainable development and responsible tourism. Our goal is to maintain the synergy between private and public partnerships at the destination, and create an interest network of quality. We prepare projects for integrated quality management at the destination, we stimulate survey about quality and service, implementation of sustainable development, defining the goals of the local self-government in tourism development, focusing on responsible tourism, cultural tourism prepare as multidisciplinary modern concept, event management, rural tourism. We stimulate local product development, the increase of quality in gastronomy, thematization of facilities, the preservation and promotion of biodiversity, health, wellness, sports, destination animation, destination design, thematic events, we deal with a number of challenges and quality elements at the destination.
For more information contact: Durdica Simicic
Moscow City Tourism Committee
Moscow Travel Factory (Moscow Travel Hub Accelerator)
Accelerator is a support institute for startups and new projects that includes a training programme and an intensive course about company growth course through mentorship/tracking, financial and expert support. Projects for Accelerator are chosen on a competitive basis. Total duration of the program is 5 months. The program will be monitored by mentors/trackers. The final goal is to turn your project into a scalable business with the possibility of garnering investment.
For more information contact: Artur Perekhod
North Ossetian State University
Celebration of the World Tourism Day by NOSU University (Russia) to address COVID-19 challenges
World Tourism Day by NOSU includes a set of events for international and Department of Tourism students:
- Hike to the mountains in Federal Specially Protected Natural Area “National Park Alania”;
- Educational game with participation of professors and experts on sustainable development of tourism in Specially Protected Natural Areas;
- Presentations of:
- regional Ministry of Tourism about tourism possibilities in the region during COVID-19;
- NOSU Youth Tourism Club about development of student tourism and opportunities for students;
- NOSU Centre for Sustainable Development on educational opportunities from UNWTO e-library, Sustainable Development Solutions Network library and online courses and NOSU online course on SDGs (to be launched in 2020 in collaboration with Spanish Partner Universidad Isabel I);
- Tour around regional National Museum.
The initiative unites NOSU, regional government, commercial and non-commercial sectors for sustainable tourism development in the region. Due to pandemic, several events were organized online, all events were organized in compliance with sanitary standards.
For more information contact: Lara Dzabolova
SINGERMAN & MAKÓN – LATAM TOURISM CONSULTING
INFORME: DESAFÍO DEL TURISMO EN ARGENTINA, EL DÍA DESPUÉS DE LA PANDEMIA
En medio del contexto actual y pensando en el día después de la pandemia, desde el Estudio Singerman & Makón llevamos a cabo una encuesta de “Consumo y Turismo Post Coronavirus”. La misma se realizó para Argentina entre los meses de abril y agosto, con el fin último de identificar la evolución de las expectativas de consumo para la etapa post crisis del COVID-19. Los resultados del relevamiento pueden resumirse en una serie de indicadores que nos dan una idea de cuál va a ser el camino para la reactivación del sector turístico. Al mismo tiempo se realizaron una serie de proyecciones para analizar diferentes escenarios en cuanto a la evolución del turismo interno e internacional en Argentina de cara al 2021.
For more information contact: Pablo Alejandro Singerman
Tripadvisor
How Tripadvisor is helping the travel industry recover by promoting tourism safety
The goal of Tripadvisor Travel Safe is to help consumers find, filter for, and validate health and safety information to feel more confident with their future travel choices across town and around the world, and to help business owners inform travelers of the security measures that they have put in place in their establishments to keep them safe. This initiative comes from the need we saw speaking with travellers to help them understand, find and easily compare information helpful for their safety.
For more information contact: forlando@tripadvisor.com
UCC WHALE CENTER
Blue Community Assessment & Management in the Time of Covid19
The Blue Community Program was recently revised to respond to covid19 so that the entire program can be implemented online.
An international team has been formed to guide the development including representatives from the Blue Community Consortium, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, and the University of Central Florida Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
For more information contact: David Randle
University of Brighton
Responding to COVID19- SME Stabilization and Acceleration Program in Kenya
The "Responding to COVID19- SME Stabilization and Acceleration Program" is aimed at strengthening tourism SMEs through this crisis and stabilizing SMEs’ readiness for renewal and acceleration. The Training Webinars were aimed at putting the pandemic in the context of tourism SMEs in Kenya, to shape a shared understanding of how COVID-19 could affect tourism and sustainable development. Collaborative research between UoB, STTA and TOSK provided baseline data sets to inform capacity building for 57 TOSK members and will be used for grant applications to scale up the intervention in Africa. The mentoring/coaching resulting from the UoB allocation of resources (staff and £3000 to pay STTA staff researchers) and reciprocal UoB/STTA knowledge exchange helped developing tools for resilience in SMEs for Kenya.
For more information contact: Prof. Marina Novelli
University of Brighton
Building Bridges for Sustainable Tourism in Africa (BBSTA)
In Africa, numerous analysis by the UNWTO, WTTC and substantial academic research as well as discussions emerging from the BBSTA's Advocacy Task Force and stakeholders' consultations and activities so far implemented led to the belief that creative solutions are needed to address this crisis. Remaining as passive bystanders is not an option and would be detrimental to restarting tourism in Africa post COVID19 without tacking some of the most complex issues associated with the sector. Proactive, innovative and achievable macro and micro interventions are critical to tourism recovery in the region. BBSTA was born out of a shared commitment and strongly encourages individual contributions, wider participation and collaborations and the exchange of knowledge and ideas
For more information contact: Prof. Marina Novelli
URPEAK Sarl
Crowd Free World. Travel Must Go On!
With the intention of communicating all of the safety measures undertaken by the tourism industry, we propose an initiative called “Crowd-Free.World”, which is focused on illustrating the safety and benefits of travelling during these challenging times.
For more information contact: Olga Novitskaya
Vienna Tourist Board
Re-shaping Vienna: Visitor Economy Strategy
The Visitor Economy continues to pursue the long-term goals defined in the Visitor Economy Strategy 2025 while focussing on economic, environmental and social sustainability and resilience. The dialog with various stakeholders in the visitor economy will be fostered, an approach that has already proved so successful in devising the strategy. While it may seem that the goals of the 2025 Visitor Economy Strategy are moving out of reach, there is a firm commitment to them. The targets and timelines involved will be evaluated and, if necessary, adapted and fine-tuned as soon as this evolving situation becomes clearer.
For more information contact: Petra Tschöll
Wakayama University
Tourism recovery and sustainability in Asia and the Pacific: Wakayama-CTR Webinar
The advent of COVID-19 had seen the introduction of webinars as a key knowledge-sharing platform and for the dissemination of cutting edge research. The recordings can serve as teaching materials. These will also be linked on UNWTO resources page. The webinar series got 610 participants and 53 countries and regions in total. It could provide more flexible environment for scholars, students and professionals across the globe to gain the latest knowledge and novel perspectives to overcome this difficult time in the tourism sector. Compared to a face-to-face style, we were able to reach out more participants and communicate with more diverse views.
For more information contact: Misato Murano
Well Hospitality
Label Welcome Safely to Morocco
Under the initiative of the Ministry of Tourism of Morocco, Well Hospitality in collaboration with Bureau Veritas implemented the label “Welcome Safely to Morocco”. The label balances the ease of implementation, economic efficiency, and social circumstances with international best safety practices from the World Tourism Organization and other experts. Upon registering on the online portal, hotels and other tourist accommodation establishments will be able to review the health security framework and assess their compliance. The platform also offers free training to staff regarding health security. Forty-one modules, both in French and Arabic, will be available to transfer know-how on managing daily risky tasks. The trainings will cover a range of operations within reception, maintenance, cooking, catering, wellness, and administrative roles. Hotels can apply for the “Welcome Safely” after meeting all requirements, completing the training modules, and undergoing a compliance audit by an approved provider.
For more information contact: Jean-Luc Taborin
World Leisure Organization
The World Leisure Organization Charter for Leisure 2020
In 1948, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized, in its articles 24 and 27, the right of all to enjoy leisure time and to freely participate in the cultural life of the community. The WLO Charter for Leisure, which was first published 50 years ago, outlines the implications of this historic declaration. In order to encompass important updates and changes in line with emerging social and global issues, a proposal to revise the Charter for Lesiure, arosed at the biennial meeting of the World Leisure Academy (WLA), which aims to promote leisure through advocacy, research and educational endeavours, in 2016. In consequence, the WLO Board of Directors invited the WLA to conduct the review. Expressions of interest were called for from among the WLA members to join a Special Taskforce, over the period 2017-2019, whose final work was approved by the WLO Board of Directors in 2020.
For more information contact: Cristina Ortega Nuere