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03 November 2020

The FiturNext Observatory puts a spotlight on gender equality and female empowerment

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The Observatory identifies tourism initiatives that contribute to gender equality and evaluates them in terms of their replicability and impact.

The FiturNext 2021 Observatory, FITUR's platform dedicated to promoting good tourism practices in terms of sustainability, will award tourism initiatives that contribute to gender equality and female empowerment in its second edition. It will do so based on its replicability capacity, that is, the possibilities that these initiatives have to be reproduced by other actors in the sector with different resources. The ultimate objective of the action is to increase the positive impact on the sector by replicating these practices.

The FiturNext methodology consists of four development phases. During the first, good practices of innovations in tourism are identified that can generate a positive effect on residents, visitors, destinations and the planet. In the second, the selected initiatives are organised according to the challenges they address to develop an analysis of the critical elements for their replicability. Next, the evaluation of good practices is carried out using the Barometer of Replicability and impact on the challenge, a tool that allows evaluating projects from two dimensions: the degree of maturity of the initiatives and their viability through the requirements to replicate it. Finally, an Advisory Council made up of experts and professionals from the sector is in charge of selecting the winning initiatives, which will be presented and awarded within the framework of FITUR 2021 through a programme specifically designed to promote their replication in the sector.

More than 300 initiatives analysed

To date, FiturNext has analysed more than 300 initiatives and has held dozens of interviews to get to know some of them in depth. The type of proposals received is wide and varied: from small tour operators (such as small travel agencies or local hotels) to large companies in the sector. Most of them, in addition, coincide due to their high quality and their ability to generate a real impact on the challenge of this edition: promoting a fairer and more egalitarian tourism industry.

The 2021 Challenge

Following the success of the last edition, FiturNext 2021 will focus its agenda on the industry's contribution to gender equality and female empowerment. A commitment fully aligned with the fifth United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, which seeks to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls around the world.

The tourism sector represents an important gateway for women to the labour market, especially in developing or less developed countries. The participation of women in the hotel and restaurant services industry represents, in fact, 55.5% worldwide.

About  FITUR

FITUR is one of the great leading fairs in the world panorama of tourist events and an essential appointment for the communication of the tourism industry with the incoming and outgoing markets of Latin America. Organised by IFEMA, it will celebrate its 41st edition from May 19th to 23rd in 2021 at Feria de Madrid, exceptional dates for an edition of FITUR especially dedicated to contributing to the recovery of tourism and with the aim of creating an environment of trust and reactivation for companies and destinations. There will be five days of commercial and business activity that will focus on repositioning the tourist offer, national and international, in a highly visible showcase aimed at strengthening this essential sector for the growth of the economy, and showing its trends in future in terms of specialisation, technology and sustainability.

More information: www.ifema.es/en/fitur-next