By Dolores Ordóñez, Director AnySolution, D3HUB Co-ordinator
Tourism is a highly complex industry. This statement is based on three fundamental facts. First, the tourism sector involves many actors in its value chain. Second, it is closely linked to other industries, such as mobility, cultural heritage, environment, training, and talent. Finally, competencies are diverse at different administrative levels across EU countries.
Despite its important weight in the European GDP (more than 10%, when the automotive sector accounts for 8%), tourism is not a European policy, as the Member States have not ceded their sovereignty in this area, which only reinforces the third complexity mentioned above. However, for several years now, it has been gaining momentum at the level of European initiatives and programmes. This is basically due to two factors: on the one hand, the accelerated and rapid adoption of digitalisation by this sector, and on the other hand, the pandemic caused by COVID-19. This is also supported by a demand for sustainability, circularity and resilience that have become quasi-mandatory transversal vectors in this important industry.
An important community that has emerged at the dawn of these recent factors was created through the preparatory actions that have laid the foundations for the European Tourism Data Space. Specifically, through the DATES project, which we had the honour of leading, two important actions were carried out to create the community: on the one hand, through the “Become Stakeholder” campaign and through the huge number of online and off-line events that were organised or in which we participated, a community of more than 400 entities from all over the EU was created in less than a year, which multiplied the 70 letters of support with which the proposal was presented. On the other hand, the creation of the Interministerial Committee, with the aim of working with the Member States to generate synergies, avoid duplication, and promote greater exchange between the initiatives being implemented in each country,
This community now aims to be maintained and increased through the European Competence Centre for Data Management in Tourism Destinations – D3HUB, which, keeping the same coordination and some of the DATES partners, has the challenge of setting up a Competence Centre in the next three years to help destinations and their ecosystems to improve data management, accompanying them with training, advice and technological solutions to help them to be more competitive, more sustainable and to make their decisions and policies data-driven.
Being aware that the success of D3HUB will depend mostly on the capacity to incorporate different points of view and the needs and requirements of the other actors and countries, different actions will be organised during the project to keep this community active and involved. The website and social networks will be important points of contact, as well as the different surveys, webinars, seminars, and events that will be organised and participated in.
If you are interested in being part of the community and supporting the implementation of the European Competence Centre for Data Management in Tourism Destinations, register now at www.d3hub-competencecentre.eu/ (become stakeholder)