The conferences, under the common title of “Tourism Intelligences,” will comprise four panels where professional experts in the sector will intervene.

Spain is again at the forefront in tourism management, holding onto its first place in the index of most popular tourist destinations in the world, as developed by the World Economic Forum.

FITUR 2018, International Tourism Trade Fair, to be held between January 17-21 in the Madrid Trade Fair, will host the Conferences on Tourism Innovation, entitled “Tourism Intelligences,” organized by the Asociación Española de Expertos Científicos en Turismo, AECIT (Spanish Association of Science Experts in Tourism). These conferences will be held on Thursday, January 18, in Room N110 of the Madrid Trade Fair, between 10 AM and 12 AM.

The system of smart tourism has become a key tool for the strategic management of any destination. The management of tourism data appears as a ground breaking and powerful tool of the smart tourism sector which undoubtedly needs to be used by professionals in the whole world as a crucial chance waiting to be used.

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, developed every two years to select the most popular tourist destinations in the world from among 136 countries, has again placed Spain at the top of the international tourism sector.

This conference, chaired by Juan Miguel Moreno, an expert in tourism innovation, CEO of More Turismo Internacional and AECIT board member, will serve to analyze the importance of smart management applied to tourism. Specific cases from different countries and organizations will be studied, and four leading professionals in the field will analyze, among other topics, the influence of smart tourism in countries’ competitiveness, the role of technology companies in the future of tourism, the structure given to smart tourism by supranational organizations or the future of the tourism sector and the role of innovation in all of it.

Fabián González, co-founder of The Digital Band S.L and a professional in the tourism sector specializing in the application of innovation, technology and marketing to improve positioning, brand recognition and, above all, earnings, will be presenting “Smart business for the tourism sector” at these conferences. Mr. González has worked in the field of ICT applied to the tourism sector and will explain how to convert the data held by businesses into useful information for future decision-making processes.

“Application of Big Data to smart tourist destinations” is the title of the presentation by Albert Isern, CEO of Bismart, who will address this topic by relying on his eight-year experience as the founder and manager of this company, which specializes in big data and business intelligence.

Jimmy Pons, the Innovation Maker of Blue Bay Hotels and Executive Mindfulness Teacher in EOI, will also participate in these AECIT conferences. He will analyze a common doubt among professionals of the sector: will humans be replaced by robots and AI in the tourism sector? This has been one of the main concerns of workers since the Industrial Revolution, and nowadays it has been intensified by forecasts from experts that by 2025 one in three jobs may be taken over by a robot.

The last of the attending professionals will be José Luis Gago Llover, from Prevengal Safety S.L. Mr. Gago is an expert in drones and has extensive experience in the labor field, since he holds and MA in Business Management and Administration, specializing in Business Development, Marketing and Sales. He also holds a triple master’s degree in Occupational Health and Safety.

eTurboNews is a media partner for FITUR.