A good summer in a national key and uncertainty in the last part of the year: 2021 tourism sector forecast predictions - these are the forecasts of the tourism sector for 2021.

The arrival of the pandemic 15 months ago caused the tourism sector to go from representing 12.4% of the Spanish GDP in 2019 to only 4.3% last year. It lost more than 100,000 million euros and Spain, one of the international reference destinations, was left without 63 million foreign tourists in 2020.

With the title Towards a new way of traveling in the post COVID scenario, held on June 3rd its XVI Smart Business Meeting, which addressed how travel will be and how transport and tourism will be transformed after the pandemic.

In the second roundtable, dedicated to tourism and moderated by the director, Yovanna Blanco, 3 outstanding managers of the sector shared their expectations regarding the recovery of the sector.

2021 tourism sector forecast predictions

Christian Boutin, managing director of Amadeus in Spain and Portugal; Ricardo Fernández, managing director of Destinia; and Carlos Calero, managing director of Vincci Hoteles, provided their vision of the current situation and what awaits the industry in the coming months, keys to stay afloat.

While the fight continues, the summer of 2021 should bring hope to this badly damaged sector since travel stopped short thanks to the push for vaccination and the end of mobility restrictions.

2021 tourism sector forecast predictions: According to Fernández, the European summer is going to be good, since there are several very positive and hopeful factors facing the summer season such as the improvement in mobility, the increase in vaccination or the fact that we have become accustomed to living differently.

"We haven't had the retained savings we have in Spain since 2011. There is a bag of money that will explode at some point," Fernández said when asked about the recovery in demand.

The businessman added that it will be a summer in domestic key, very little international, and very good both for the powerful destinations of Spain and for companies in the sector. Despite this, Fernández believes that from October there will be a duality: companies will have certain frictions, but destinations will continue on the right track.

2021 tourism sector forecast predictions

Boutin agreed that the summer will be key for the sector: "It will be a turning point, of important improvement, and everything will continue to rise. The important thing will be the collaboration of all the actors in the industry to be able to start in a powerful way".

As for travel agencies, Boutin not only believes that the end of them is not near, but that they will resurface in a very important way.

"Anyone who has had to manage a trip during the pandemic has realized the importance of travel agencies when you are in another country and have to go home," he recalled.

2021 tourism sector forecast predictions: However, he said that these will have to change the way they work, although the value of them is guaranteed, because they have a very important role to contribute to travelers. "You need technology and a human factor because only people can solve your problems," he said.

For his part, Calero wanted to point out that the pandemic has affected the sector as never before: "We are in a situation that people call crisis, but it is not and no one had experienced this. The activity stopped in its tracks, it is not that we have experienced an economic crisis or confidence with a process of adaptation".

As for the coming months, Calero is not so optimistic: "It's going to be a good summer compared to what we've been dragging. But where are the millions of tourists we always receive? They're gone. I think it will be a summer of saving furniture, but there is still a complicated autumn and winter."

The hotel entrepreneur considered that they should have been a little more imaginative with the measures that have been taken. "We should be able to adapt to these ups and downs," he pointed out in reference to the constant changes in the restrictions of the United Kingdom, the first market issuing tourists to Spain.

2021 tourism sector forecast predictions

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The boom of international fintech in Spain: more and more technological headquarters are opening attracted by the combination of talent, climate and salaries

The Swedish fintech Klarna specialized in deferment of payments has just announced that it will create 500 jobs in Madrid where it will create a technology center. The German neobank N26 has already spent several years with one in Barcelona where it hopes to end the year with 200 employees, growing against the 140 it currently has between its office in Madrid and Barcelona. The Brazilian Creditas has an office in Valencia and the neobank for companies Qonto has announced that it will open an office in Barcelona, like the British Checkout.

The combination of talent, lower salaries than in other European countries along with a favorable climate have become an attraction for international fintech companies to set their sights on Spain, which is also one of their main markets in many cases.

"Spain has all the ingredients to become a global reference center for the digital economy. Apart from the extraordinary pool of talent of highly qualified digital professionals, foreign companies highly value the quality of life, the cultural offer and the climate that Spain offers. Our country has by itself a great potential for attraction, as evidenced by the fact that many fintech and technology companies have chosen it to have their hubs here", explains Marta Echarri, general director of N26 Spain.

The German neobank currently has two branches in our country. Barcelona, which is the technological center, and Madrid where the activities most related to administration and regulation are included.

Barcelona will also be the place chosen by the British Checkout to open a technology center in Spain. "Barcelona is considered among the 5 most important tech hubs in Europe, it is a market with 1,500 technology companies, with a very large growth and in which a lot of investment is entering", assured the general director of Checkout.com for Southern Europe, Jonathan G. Rambal.

This headquarters will begin to operate with 4 employees and adds to the engineering center that the company has in Porto (Portugal), which has 16 workers. The company's goal is to double those 20 employees by the end of the year. Checkout is a fintech specialized in providing technological services to other companies to facilitate their payments improving the customer experience.

"One thing is where you have your market and another is where you have your talent. At first, we decided to settle in São Paulo and, until today, we have 2,000 people there, almost 90% of our team. The rest are in Mexico and Spain, specifically in Valencia. It is true that an important part of the teams, especially the commercial and operational teams, need to be close to customers, in this case Brazil and Mexico, but technology talent is something else", explains Sergio Furio, founder and CEO of Creditas.

Creditas is a secured lending platform that focuses its business on the Brazilian market. Founded in 2012, this fintech has 1,900 employees spread across its headquarters in Brazil, Mexico and Valencia. Despite the pandemic, the company in Spain ended 2020 with a team of 40 engineers compared to 20 at the beginning of last year.

Furio says that there are several reasons that led him to establish this office in Valencia. "Firstly, universities that train very high-quality engineers; secondly, a technology ecosystem that is growing very quickly and on which we are betting very strongly. Finally, an unbeatable quality of life for our crew (as we call our employees). And, obviously, the fact that I was born there helped in the process of opening and growing the office, of course, " says the manager.

A few days ago, the Swedish fintech Klarna announced that it will open a technology center in Madrid where they expect 500 people to work.

"The pace at which Klarna is growing around the world means that we need to expand our team of developers. And, with the good results we are seeing in Spain, we have identified Madrid as an ideal location to complement our other technology hubs across Europe. Madrid has a huge pool of talent, good universities and more and more professionals who once explored a career outside Spain want to return", explains Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna.

The company is dedicated to the deferred payment of purchases has a valuation of more than 31,000 million dollars. In its international expansion it arrived in Spain last summer.

Klarna is organized in more than 450 teams, spread over 3 continents and with more than 90 nationalities, operating as independent startups aligned with a common vision and mission. Each team is composed of approximately 8 members, with different competencies and skills, who acquire responsibility from start to finish on a problem or space, related to the overall objectives of the company.

Among the fintech companies that have also announced the opening of offices in Spain is the French neobank specialized in companies and freelancers Qonto. The fintech headquarters in Spain will host 30 professionals by the end of 2021, and Qonto plans to double the size of that team over the next few years, to reach 100 employees by 2023.