XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario - In January 2020, the source brought together important voices from the tourism sector to talk about how the industry was at that time.

All the speakers agreed that, after extraordinary years, 2019 had not been the best exercise for the tourism sector, although it was a good year. The collapse of Thomas Cook and the altercations in Barcelona significantly affected the results of the last quarter, with Brexit uncertainty also just around the corner.

Nobody expected what came just 2 months later, when the pandemic broke into our lives and changed everything.

The tourism sector went from representing 12.4% of 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.

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.

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario

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.

The meeting, sponsored by Havas Media Group and the news aggregator Upday, was moderated by the CEO of Axel Springer Spain-publishing company, Manuel del Campo, and the director, Yovanna Blanco, and was attended by these outstanding experts:

• Javier Gándara, Managing director of easyJet for Southern Europe and president of ALA
• Hélène Valenzuela, General manager of Ouigo in Spain
• Christian Boutin, Managing director of Amadeus in Spain and Portugal
• Ricardo Fernández, general manager of Destinia
• Carlos Calero, General manager of Vincci Hotels
• Ferran Juaní Solans, Managing director of Havas Media Group International

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario

The event was inaugurated by María José Rallo, Secretary general of Transport and Mobility, who pointed out that we still have important challenges ahead and a future that has to be transformative: "In the ministry we are reinventing ourselves to focus on mobility policies to provide solutions to the needs of citizens. We are looking for a system that is resilient, safe, sustainable and connected."

Rallo recalled that the sector has 2 key dates ahead: June 7, when Spain will open without restrictions to vaccinated tourists, and July 1, when the green digital certificate is launched.

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario: Ferran Juaní Solans, managing director of Havas Media Group International, pointed out that this change in the way of traveling affects all areas, including communication.

"We see demand as a Pandora's box. There's a contained demand about to open this box and uncover it. This new era in the travel sector means that we have to adapt our marketing and communication strategies. We have to rethink everything we have done so far, including seasonality. Now the strategies have to be more of continuity," he said.

Javier Gándara, general manager of easyJet for Southern Europe and president of the Airlines Association (ALA) and Hélène Valenzuela, general manager of Ouigo in Spain, discussed in the first round table of the event about the future of transport in Spain.

Both insisted on the need to let the traveler know that safety is guaranteed both on planes and trains by the measures that are being implemented.

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario

About how the imposition of these measures will affect the experience, Gándara said that it is not the first time something like this happens: "Some will stay and others will not but, as with the 11S, there are things that seemed the end of the world and now we have internalized them, such as putting the liquids of 100 milliliters in a bag. The tickets didn't go up in price for that then, now it won't happen either." Along the same lines, Valenzuela recalled that with the 11M it was also necessary to implement extra security measures in train stations that, today, are part of the routine of train travel.

In addition, they noted that some of these measures will even improve the user experience, such as the digitization of the journey in general.

"Biometrics to make automatic shipments with facial recognition or digital certificate will make the controls faster, safer and respecting the privacy of passengers," said Gándara.

For his part, Valenzuela insisted on the importance of sustainability as a key element in the transformation and future of the sector, and recalled that the train is the greenest mode of transport. "A trip with Ouigo is an offer that pollutes 50 times less than the car and 80 times less than the plane," he said.

"My enemy is not the plane, it's the car. We can benefit from the ban on short flights, but our goal is to get people out of the car. In addition, the train is not perfect and can be more sustainable, " he added.

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario

Christian Boutin, general manager of Amadeus in Spain and Portugal; Ricardo Fernández, general manager of Destinia; and Carlos Calero, general manager of Vincci Hoteles, provided their vision of the current situation and what is to come at the second table of the meeting.

"The European summer is going to be good. There is a bag of money that will explode at some point and it will be a summer in domestic key," said Fernández asked about the recovery of demand.

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".

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 a crisis of confidence."

XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario: The hotel entrepreneur considered that they should have been a little more imaginative with the measures that have been taken and considered that there is still a complicated autumn. "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.

On the possibility of Spain losing competitiveness to other Mediterranean tourist powers that seem to be taking the lead, Calero said that it is possible that these destinations are occasionally making decisions that benefit them in the short term, but he believes that Spain will not lose its leadership because "we are the number 1 in hotel and service offer".

So what can we expect? According to Fernández, the consumer has changed because he has no choice. "There will be things that remain, but tourism will be more like what we had before," he said. Despite this, Fernández anticipated a great diversification of global destinations, which will stop focusing on the" same 30 or 40 " as always, which he sees as an opportunity for all.

Finally, the managers pointed out that the long-awaited recovery goes through 2 key points. On the one hand, as Boutin pointed out, to regain the confidence of the traveler and understand what motivates or stops him when traveling. On the other, and according to Calero, for talking with the authorities:"We need a hand because we were already a profitable sector before this happened".

# XVI Smart Business Meeting new traveling post COVID scenario #