The 8th Fitur Know-How & Export invests in sustainable tourism and technology

During the opening event, Oliver explained that Fitur Know-How & Export has become an essential Fitur event for learning about the latest technological services and products available to tourists, but this year it is going one step further, trying to raise awareness around the technology that is contributing to the development of a sustainable tourism model.

Fitur Know-How & Export, an initiative driven by SEGITTUR and Fitur in collaboration with the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), has an exhibition space of 1600 m2, in which almost 40 companies hold exhibitions.

This initiative is aimed at supporting the internationalisation of Spanish tourism companies by giving them the opportunity to show their potential and share their innovative services and products with other international markets.

The CEO of ICEX, María Peña Mateos, explained that in this exhibition, and thanks to its collaboration with ICEX, Fitur Know-How & Export is receiving visits from international purchasers interested in getting to know the technological solutions developed by Spanish companies for their possible internationalisation: two hotel chains in Puerto Rico, four tourist technology companies in Morocco and two companies from South Korea.

Moreover, ICEX has organised a work meeting with a delegation from Peru, led by the minister for Foreign Trade and Tourism, Édgar Vásquez, who came along to find out what Spain is doing regarding Smart cities and tourism. They were able to learn about Spanish companies with proven experience in this field, such as Indra, Idom, Ilunion, Wellness Tech Group, Telefónica and Sismotur.

ICEX also invited a representative from the World Bank to its “Tourism and Development: New Opportunities within the tourism sector, hand in hand with the World Bank” seminar, in which opportunities were presented in countries such as Indonesia, Honduras, Gambia and Ghana. This representative attended a series of B2B interviews with companies with experience in climate change, gender perspective, adventure tourism and big data.

Tourism service technology is playing a big part in this year’s exhibition, in which investments in sustainable tourism are very clear in the “Tourism and the SDGs: a safe investment for Spanish companies to transform the tourism sector” session, which will be held tomorrow.

During this session, several of the main Spanish tourism companies will present the ways in which they are working to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Smart Destinations are present at Fitur Know-How & Export for another year, and will explain to destinations what they must work on to become a Smart Destination and how to meet the UNE Smart Destination standard, while sharing best practices in innovation, sustainability and technology implemented by destinations within the Smart Destinations Network.

The use of 5G in the tourism sector

One of the new features of this year’s exhibition is the presentation of cases regarding the use of 5G in the tourism sector. These are the result of the EVE-5G European project, in which SEGITTUR, Ericsson Spain, Yerba Buena VR, Telefónica, 5TONIC and UC3M have collaborated. A demonstration was given of virtual reality applied to the tourism sector based on 5G, offering immersive experiences in high-quality 360º video, which allow tourism experiences to be developed in the digital world.

These experiences demonstrate the possibilities of 5G through virtual reality to facilitate live virtual attendance at immersive events or access to a category of immersive experiences as a way to virtually “travel” to new destinations. This could boost tourist attractions in certain places and/or events that are often not in high demand as tourists are unfamiliar with them.

SEGITTURLab: an ideas lab

Throughout these days, SEGITTUR is organising SEGITTURLab, an ideas lab in which workshops will be held for tourism professionals, tackling topics such as active listening, European funding for tourism or chatbots and the role of women in tourism technology companies.

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