This May, Barcelona will host Forum TurisTIC, the benchmark event in the application of ICT to the tourism industry, organised by the Eurecat technology centre. The seventh edition of this event will address the technological transformation of tourism and the global challenges it is facing, such as sustainability and climate change, and the new environment and business opportunities opening up, such as the metaverse.
The congress, which will be held in person on 10 May at CosmoCaixa and online via streaming, will feature four reflection sessions that will examine aspects such as sustainable tourism, how the use of social media impacts tourism, technology applied to the sector, and the metaverse and tourism of the future.
This year, ‘we will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of Forum TurisTIC, and in this special edition, the congress will be focused on the new technologies that strengthen the tourism industry, making it more productive and competitive’, points out Xavier Torra, the chair of Eurecat.
With this aim, he adds, Forum TurisTIC ‘will look back on the evolution of tourism over these years, in a highly changing and constantly evolving environment’.
In the words of Salvador Anton Clavé, the scientific director of Eurecat’s Tourism Division and professor at Rovira i Virgili University, ‘taking advantage of its tenth anniversary, this edition of Forum TurisTIC seeks to position the debate in a different dimension from previous years, delving not only into the contributions that technology can make to the tourism dynamic, but also debating the role they play in its transformation itself’.
New challenges and opportunities for tourism
The first round table for reflection at Forum TurisTIC will address the state of the industry to offer sustainable tourism, in line with the preferences and trends in the travel world, with views on the role of emotions in the use of new technologies in this area and how to make technology in the tourism sector more human, among others.
In the area of social media in tourism, the congress will reflect on the challenge posed by Generations Z and Alpha, who share a new consumption pattern based on interacting with technology, personalised experience and immediacy.
Forum TurisTIC will also look at the role that technology has to play in the industry and how to identify the needs and tools for this transformation. The afternoon session will focus on phenomena such as the metaverse and the opportunities they can offer the industry.
The event, entitled ‘10 years of Tourism and Innovation: Reflections’, will bring together companies from the tourism, innovation and technology development industries, as well as public institutions, organisations and trade associations that specialise in these industries.
Forum TurisTIC is a congress organised by Eurecat and promoted by the Government of Catalonia, Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Provincial Council.
