Five Projects That Can Benefit Hotels and Clients
To restart the tourism business, Spanish hoteliers are investing in a series of projects that can benefit both businesses and their customers: smart hotels; a digital and technology platform; an energy efficiency and sustainability centre; a mobility hub in tourist areas; and a cybersecurity centre of excellence
Restarting the tourism business calls for focussed, practical projects funded by the Recovery Plan for Europe. As the president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), Jorge Marichal, points out, “tourism is one of the industries that could most benefit from this aid, both because of its intrinsic characteristics and because of its importance in generating GDP and employment in Spain, and its growth potential and its capacity and potential for digital transformation, ecological transition and social and territorial cohesion, among others.”
To promote this idea, Spanish hoteliers have presented five specific projects in the “Report on the Future of the Tourism Sector and Next Generation EU Funding”, prepared byCEHAT, the Hotel Technology Institute (ITH) and PwC. These are five initiatives that benefit both the client and the entrepreneur, and that are also favourable to the destination, as is the case with Smart Hotels and the Smart Tourism Ecosystem Development Platform and E-Commerce Solutions Accelerator.
These are the projects:
1. Smart Hotels: aims to offer a package of products and services for the accommodation sector to improve its competitiveness under two pillars: digital business transformation and hotel sustainability and energy efficiency.
2. Smart Tourism Ecosystem Development Platform and E-Commerce Solutions Accelerator: there is a need to develop a digital space at national and regional level, where destinations can support the development of technology systems and new infrastructure to take full advantage of the data economy and exchange information between value chain actors. This would provide a differential value to public and private businesses in developing their commercial and customer interaction strategies.
3. Sustainable and Efficient Destinations: this will develop a centre of expertise, focussing on energy efficiency and sustainability in Spain’s tourism sector, based on renewable energies, for the different actors that make up the tourism ecosystem.
4. Sustainable Urban Tourism Mobility: This project proposes creating an excellence hub working on mobility applicable to tourist areas, and developing sustainable mobility solutions in all destinations.
5. Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence: for Advice, Development, Support and Response to Cybersecurity Threats And Incidents for the Hotel Sector: proposes developing security mechanisms for critical hotel applications to respond to potential technological threats and incidents affecting the hotel sector’s international operations.