THR's news
Eulogio Bordas, founding partner of THR Tourism Industry Advisors, reflects on the challenges facing tourism in the round table organized by Hosteltur
Recently, Eulogio Bordas, founder of THR, took part in Hosteltur TV programme to discuss - together with Enrique Ruiz de Lera, Deputy Director of Marketing at Turespaña, Francesc Mateu, Director of the Tourism Strategy Agency of the Balearic Islands, and Tolo Gomila, Founding Partner of Mindhead - the challenges and perspectives that the tourism sector will encounter in the short, medium, and long term.
In addition to the usual challenges facing the Spanish tourism sector, such as addressing seasonality, the diversification of source markets, and the profitability of tourism companies, new challenges are emerging that must be considered.
On one hand, emphasis is placed on the appearance of new players, with special attention to the Middle East, which, as Eulogio Bordas points out, are developing numerous large-scale tourism projects with the ambition of positioning themselves as the next great tourist destinations of the future.
On the other hand, sustainability, which although not currently a decisive purchasing factor, evidence suggests that in the near future and for the younger generation of tourists, will become of vital importance.
Other challenges to be considered include Smart Data, and the need to implement more intelligent and efficient data collection and sharing. In this regard, Eulogio Bordas points to Croatia and its E-Visitor tool, as well as the sending of micro-segmented offers, as examples to take into account.
Eulogio also emphasizes the proliferation of digital nomads and their importance as niche and business opportunities, and finally, highlights the shortage of talent and human resources that the tourism sector currently suffers from as an important challenge to overcome to guarantee the sector's competitiveness.
However, despite the many challenges facing the sector, the speakers showed an optimistic attitude due to consumers' eagerness to travel and the window of opportunity ahead of us.