UNWTO and the Comunidad de Madrid have reunited 18 experts from all around the world to share ideas, debate and explore the challenges and trends of cultural tourism.
The meeting focused on the strategic management of cultural resources for the destinations, including the challenge of managing tourist flows through different routes or combined products. Experts also discussed on how to promote lesser-known destinations which are outside of the major tourist circuits as a way to avoid the saturation of main touristic attractions. In this sense, for example, the experts examined crucial role of tourism promotion, marketing strategies, and public-private partnerships for the development of cultural tourism.
The debates focused on the identification of aspects that are jeopardizing the sustainability of cultural tourism. This brings up the eternal dilemma between conservation and development, and to what extent it is legitimate to exploit the cultural values of a territory for the socio-economic growth.
Ion Vilcu, Director of the UNWTO Affiliate Members Department, highlighted the importance of cultural values for the promotion of destinations. He added “UNWTO is providing solutions to the conflicts that tourist saturation is generating in major destinations and cultural sites, as well as to promote the development of tourism in lesser-known sites, stimulating their conservation and fostering the positive effects that tourism generates in terms of socioeconomic development”.
Daniel Martinez, Deputy Regional Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Region of Madrid, highlighted the opportunity for the Region of Madrid to host such an important international meeting. "We are very pleased to facilitate reflection on the region's essential tourism model. We are experiencing a large increase in high-value tourists who visit us attracted by our cultural and heritage offer, which is why it is essential to understand the trends of cultural tourism and to promote its sustainable growth, generating employment and attracting investment.”
During the last 3 days these international experts have been working to draw up conclusions and set out recommendations for cultural and tourism destination management that will be featured in a report to be presented next January at the International Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR). On this occasion, experts also had the opportunity to visit the Picasso/Chanel Exhibition at the National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, along with the Royal Site and Town of Aranjuez.
By UNWTO Secretary General, Zurab Pololikashvili and European Union Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean
The pandemic hit tourism harder than perhaps any other sector. In Europe, global tourism’s biggest region since records began, travel was brought to a near-complete standstill. Now, as the sector’s restart has begun, there is every sign that it will continue to consolidate its status as the world’s tourism leader. Indeed, according to the latest UNWTO data, international arrivals were up by 126% over the first nine months of 2022 when compared to the previous year and reached 81% of pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, of the estimated 700 million international arrivals recorded worldwide for that period, some 477 million were welcomed by European destinations, around 68% of the global total.
Digging deeper into the data, we see that Europe’s tourism rebound is being driven by strong demand for regional or intra-regional travel. Research has found that, as a result of the pandemic, European travellers prefer to holiday closer to home, and heightened levels of insecurity coupled with economic uncertainty are only likely to reinforce this preference. At the same time, we have seen a post-pandemic shift in consumer behaviour towards more eco-friendly or sustainable tourism experiences. Young people have become increasingly aware of the impact of their travels and determined to keep their footprints as low as possible.
The restart of tourism, therefore, presents us with a unique moment to seize opportunity from crisis. In Europe, as in every global region, now is the time to capitalize on such shifts in behaviour and direct our sector on a different path, one that leads to a more sustainable and resilient future. Again, the demand among consumers is there. So too is the determination of both businesses and destinations themselves: interest in the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, launched at COP26 last year, has been highly encouraging, with some of the biggest names in European travel among the 700-plus parties to have signed up over the past year alone.
But this is not enough. In the case of transport – unsurprisingly the single biggest part of tourism’s carbon footprint – joined-up thinking and strong political and economic support are needed if we are to both speed up and scale our shift to greater sustainability. The DiscoverEU initiative is an effective example of what’s possible. The project has succeeded in promoting smart travel, most notably through incentivizing people to choose the most sustainable mode of transport for their journey. And again, young people have been among the most enthusiastic users of DiscoverEU. The responsible travellers of tomorrow are being made today.
In order to replicate the success of this initiative across the European tourism landscape, the sector needs both political support as well as the correct amount of proper, well-targeted investments. We also need to see small enterprises supported through attractive business environments and innovative funding models, thereby giving them the tools and the space, they need to make a real impact.
But we cannot just focus on investing in technology or infrastructure. It’s also essential to invest in tourism’s biggest asset – people. When the pandemic hit and travel came to a halt, many workers left the sector. And not all of them have returned. In recent months we have seen the consequences of this. The number of people employed in the air transport sector within the European Union dropped to the lowest level in almost 15 years. As a result, we saw sizeable bottlenecks at airports along with cancelled flights and other services during the peak summer season.
We need to work together – UNWTO, the European Commission, governments and employers – to make tourism an attractive sector to work in. That is, one that provides decent jobs, opportunities for women, for youth and for people living outside of big cities, and the possibility to grow professionally and develop skills that can be used either in tourism itself or in another field – because tourism’s capacity building provides skills for life. And, finally, we need to make tourism’s restart and transformation more inclusive. In the summer, UNWTO held our first Global Youth Tourism Summit in Italy, out of which came the Sorrento Call to Action, a pledge by the next generation of travellers, of professionals and leaders, to accelerate the progress of recent years and to reimagine the tourism of tomorrow. The voices of young people must now be reflected in Europe’s Agenda for Tourism 2030, to build a sector that works for people, planet, and peace.
Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary-General of the UNWTO
Adina Vâlean, European Commissioner for Transport
As the European Council presents the conclusions of the European Tourism Agenda, UNWTO has joined European Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean in emphasizing the importance of jobs, education and investments for achieving the shared vision for a revitalized sector between now and 2050.
The conclusions presented by the European Council today are built on several years of work around “Tourism in Europe for the Next Decade.” They inform a new Transition Pathway for Tourism, developed by the European Commission in consultation with key stakeholders, including UNWTO. The Transition Pathway identifies specific intervention areas to boost the tourism eco-system in Europe. Several of the key intervention areas reflect the priorities of UNWTO, most notably a recognition of the importance of building and supporting a skilled and committed workforce.
In a joint statement, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili and Commissioner Vălean welcomed the restart of international travel across the region. However, they stress that tourism and transport need to “work together” to address the gap in tourism employment by making both sectors more attractive for workers. Additionally, the joint statement notes the importance of investments in tourism as a means of accelerating the shift to greater resilience and sustainability.
UNWTO has made tourism education and training one of the priorities in recent years. Alongside this, UNWTO opened a first department focused on investments, emphasizing that to achieve its wider goals of becoming more resilient and sustainable, tourism first needs the financial and human capital in place.
UNWTO and the Comunidad de Madrid have teamed up to bring together the world's leading experts in cultural tourism.
Around 20 international professionals will meet in Madrid between 30 November-2 December to share ideas, debate and explore the challenges and trends to boost cultural tourism. They will also draw up conclusions and set out their recommendations for cultural and tourism destination managers, all of which will be presented in a report next January at the International Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR).
The rise of cultural tourism has led to a number of challenges for destinations, all of which will be addressed in the Madrid meeting. Experts will also examine the growing importance of a holistic tourist-cultural experience, recognizing that a visit to a museum, monument or show does not begin at the entrance door, but is the responsibility of a destination's entire tourism system. The role of tourism promotion, cooperation with the private sector, the appropriation of cultural resources and the fragility of the intangible will also be discussed.
Ion Vilcu, Director of the UNWTO Affiliate Members Department, stresses the importance of this conversation because "the focus is often placed on tangible cultural heritage, and intangible cultural values remain in the background, even when they inherent to the tangible ones. However, the intangible is an important attraction for visitors, precisely because of its unique, exotic, intangible and, in many cases, ephemeral nature.”
As such, aspects such as gastronomy, handicrafts, forms of production, folklore, linguistic heritage, among others, are important cultural resources for destinations, which, without sustainable management, can easily become blurred or even distorted.
The Comunidad de Madrid formalized its accession to the UNWTO as an Affiliate Member in 2021, through the public entity for the management and promotion of Madrid's tourism sector Madrid Cultura y Turismo SAU. This global meeting, in addition to deepening the needs of cultural tourism, will help to project the region internationally as a tourist destination, recognizing the specific weight that Madrid's culture represents in attracting tourists from all corners of the planet. It will also strengthen the image of the Community of Madrid and contribute to consolidating the recovery of the tourism sector which, according to the latest official data, by July of this year had recovered 100% of international visitors compared to the same period in 2019.
2022
Directorate-General for Territorial Competitiveness and Tourism of Biscay
Biscay
The Biscay Tourism Intelligence System (BTIS) forms part of the International Relations and Tourism Department which falls under the Directorate-General for Territorial Competitiveness and Tourism. The General Director for Territorial Competitiveness is directly in charge of the BTIS. For its part, the Directorate-General for Territorial Competitiveness and Tourism forms a part of the Department of Economic Promotion of Biscay’s provincial council. Biscay is a region formed by counties, and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia supports these counties, formed by numerous municipalities.
VISION
The vision of BTIS is to become a Tourism Intelligence System at the service of the agents that make up the tourism ecosystem of the Bilbao Bizkaia destination. An intelligence system that generates and shares knowledge to make decisions that enable progress to be made in the new vision of the destination defined for the 2030 horizon and the achievement of its strategic objectives over time. The tourism intelligence system will respond to the new tourism strategy of Bilbao Bizkaia in terms of sustainability formulated from the participation and cooperation of the different agents of the destination and the search for territorial balance.
The destination measures numerous variables. To name a few: monthly monitoring of economic variables provided by the national and regional statistics offices, and other sources, annual representative surveys are done to understand tourists and excursionists, annual representative surveys are done to understand residents’ perception on tourism and its management, annual representative surveys are conducted to understand the supply side, social network semantic analysis and continuous digital marketing variables monitoring.
(in addition to UNWTO mandatory indicators)
Tourism Satellite Account
Tourism Business Profile and Activity
Tourism and Same-Day Visitors’ Profile
COVID-19 Impact
Visitor Experience
Future of Tourism in Biscay
The Bilbao Biscay air connectivity strategy positions the region as a gateway, providing access to the Basque universe, looking ahead to consolidate the Basque Country as a destination and the generation of new traffic inflows and outflows.
Ministers of the Environment from across the Pan European region have agreed to promote the transformation of tourism, with key initiatives of the One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme to serve as their guiding principles.
At the conclusion of the Ninth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference, organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and held in Nicosia, Cyprus, delegates adopted a Ministerial Declaration, recognizing the urgent need to ensure the tourism sector “builds back better” from the impacts of the pandemic. Central to this will be accelerating the shift towards a circular tourism economy, while at the same time reducing waste and ensuring the sector meets its climate action responsibilities.
The Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, launched by UNWTO and partners at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) and the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, a joint initiative from UNWTO and UNEP were both referenced as key initiatives to help guide the transformation of the sector. The One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme co-hosted with UNEP and its Mediterranean Action Plan a side event on “Tourism and Circularity for Sustainable Development in the Mediterranean”, where a new repository of tools and resources focused on the circular economy and tourism was launched, alongside two new publications from the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative around measurement and procurement produced with the financial support of the Government of France.
I encourage Europe’s Environment Ministers to build synergies with their counterparts in Ministries of Tourism to implement the circular economy in the tourism sector
Addressing the Ministerial Conference, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: “For businesses, the circular economy can bring competitive advantages. For destinations, it can build more inclusive local value chains. And for tourists, it’s an opportunity to leave a positive footprint. I encourage Europe’s Environment Ministers to build synergies with their counterparts in Ministries of Tourism to implement the circular economy in the tourism sector.”
Also speaking to the Ministerial Conference, Mario Šiljeg State Secretary for the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Croatia, emphasized the importance of tourism to European economies and highlighted the significant benefits of “embracing innovative approaches, particularly moving away from traditional value chain relations adopting more systemic circular production and consumption patterns”.
Also in Nicosia, the Minister of Tourism and Environment of Albania, Mirela Kumbaro Furxhi, chaired a plenary discussion on Applying Principles of CE in Tourism', with contributions from Switzerland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ukraine, Germany, Greece, Armenia and the European Union. The EU then delivered a statement in which they too recommended the Glasgow Declaration and Global Tourism Plastics Initiative as tools to advance intentions to make the sector more sustainable.
To conclude the Nicosia meeting, delegates signed a Ministerial Declaration in which they stated: “We will promote the transformation of the tourism sector by implementing programmes and projects oriented to applying circular models in the tourism value chain. Moreover, we will build knowledge based on existing circular tools and initiatives, with a view to enabling further dissemination and outreach across relevant ECE member States. We encourage member States and other stakeholders in a position to do so to consider joining and committing to actions under the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, which unites the tourism sector behind a common vision of circular economy of plastics and the Glasgow Declaration: A Commitment to a Decade of Tourism Climate Action.”
