Resuming tourism business operations in the new scenarios which have unfolded since 2020 calls for taking a close look at tourist mobility. This was the topic at Tuesday’s ‘Optimal visitor management’, conference organised by the Tourism Innovation and Intelligence Laboratory in Eurecat’s Tourism Innovation Department and Tarragona Provincial Council’s Tourist Board on the Costa Daurada and in Terres de l’Ebre supported by Salou’s Municipal Tourist Board.
Salvador Anton Clavé, director Eurecat’s Tourism Innovation Department and Professor of Regional Geographical Analysis at Rovira i Virgili University, pointed out that “tourism intelligence and understanding tourist behaviour are essential” in order to meet the need to manage visitor movements and journeys.
“Optimal visitor management, which Tarragona Provincial Council’s Tourist Board has been working on for some time now, will be crucial in ensuring the competitiveness of destinations and achieving sustainable and future-proof tourism development,” said Marta Farrero, the director of Tarragona Provincial Council’s Tourist Board.
Pere Granados, Mayor of Salou and chair of the Municipal Tourist Board, noted that “Salou has embarked on the road to becoming a smart and sustainable tourist destination” and talked about key concepts such as responsible and inclusive tourism, mobility, dispersion measures and the destinations’ natural resources.
The event was held in the Sala Europa in Salou and included an inspirational conference, a panel discussion and a roundtable showcasing tourism industry projects. Together they unpacked the role of marketing as a key factor in shaping tourist behaviour in a destination and the need to manage visitor movements and journeys, especially after increasingly frequent instances of overcrowding in environmentally sensitive areas.
Eulogi Bordas, chair of THR Tourism Industry Advisors, explored the paradigm shift in tourism which entails evolving visitor management models to address the tourism industry’s challenges. This is because “the ‘new normal’ will more than ever call for integrated management of the ‘sustainable prosperity’ of tourist destinations by bringing in numerous changes in value propositions, customer journey management, marketing, the circular economy, environmental aesthetics management, system performance measurement, governance and leadership.”
The panel discussion “Communication, a key tool in efficient flow planning” featured Maria Fernanda (Nani) Arenas, a journalist specialising in travel and tourism communication and CEO of Mil Words Comunicación S.L, Juan Castro, the CEO of CastroConsulting and Viajarenfamilia.net, and Mabel Cajal, a tourism and digital marketing consultant. Ignacio de las Cuevas, Operations Director in Eurecat’s Tourism Innovation Department, moderated and facilitated the conversation.
At the projects roundtable, Sira Puig, director of Sitges Tourism at Sitges Town Council, Gumersindo Guinarte, Cabinet Officer for Tourism in Santiago de Compostela, Turina Serra, manager of Tourism Garrotxa, and Xavier Panisello, head of the Innovation and Data Governance Unit at Salou Town Council, shared their experiences in tourism planning to unlock sustainable destination development. The moderator was Albert Folch, deputy director for Terres de l’Ebre at Tarragona Provincial Council’s Tourist Board.
