The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has strengthened its partnership with Telefónica, the Spanish multinational telecommunications company, to advance market intelligence in order to accelerate the sector’s recovery from the impact of Covid-19.
As it guides the sector through the challenge posed by the pandemic, UNWTO has prioritised innovation as a key means of growing tourism back stronger and better.
Additionally, with the global community now left with less than 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (“The Decade of Action”), UNWTO is also driving tourism’s movement towards sustainability.
The collaboration with Telefónica, which builds on an existing partnership, is designed to use digital transformation to support sustainable recovery and future growth.
Data to help destinations
As UNWTO leads tourism’s restart, our partnership with Telefónica will allow us to provide Member States and the sector as a whole the tools they need to accelerate recovery, build trust by guaranteeing safety and promote sustainability.
UNWTO and Telefónica will work together to promote the effective use of big data and artificial intelligence across the tourism sector. This will help destinations better understand tourist behaviour, allowing them to market their products more effectively.
Management of data will also help destinations better manage tourist flows within the context of the new health and safety protocols being rolled out in response to Covid-19.
UNWTO secretary-general Zurab Pololikashvili says: “The digital transformation of tourism will allow the sector to grow back stronger from the standstill caused by Covid-19.
“As UNWTO leads tourism’s restart, our partnership with Telefónica will allow us to provide Member States and the sector as a whole the tools they need to accelerate recovery, build trust by guaranteeing safety and promote sustainability.”
Digital-led transformation
Miguel Llopis, industry lead of public sector in IoT and big data at Telefónica, adds: “Tourism will return with force but the sector will have to face a structural transformation where new digital technologies, such as IoT and big data, will be a differential factor of competitive advantage.”
Telefónica and UNWTO have worked together to launch a series of visualisation tools within the UNWTO Global Data Dashboard that allows for a better understanding of key performance indicators in tourism.