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EspañolThe tourism industry accounts for 10% of world GDP, about 8.2 billion euros (2018 data) (1).
In terms of employment, tourism and the travel industry, they represent 319 million jobs worldwide (2). In the last decade, the growth of the sector has been sustained on all continents; in fact, one in 5 jobs created in the world over the last 5 years are considered to have been driven by the tourism industry.
We are talking, then, of a sector that has demonstrated capacity for growth and vision over the last decade and, until the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis, was gradually showing its capacity to adapt to the challenges of 4th industrial Revolution.
It is too early to anticipate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the tourism and travel sector. The only thing that is clear is that in the countries where the pandemic has the strongest impact, once the wheel turns again, the landscape and the appearance of the companies will be very different.
In the midst of this situation, the tourism-related sectors must make an effort to draw the drainage lines that could best serve the recovery of the sector.
It is in this sense that I consider festivals dedicated to tourism communication to have a responsibility and a role.
Thanks to the fact of being platforms that recognize the best audiovisual productions in the sector and connecting hubs between the communication and tourism industries, at this time the tourism communication festivals must make an effort to raise their point of view and become lighthouses that could help destinations and companies to retrieve their navigation charts and, most importantly, visibility and notoriety in the “top of mind” of future travelers.
An acronym composed of four key concepts -CARE- can summarize the role that tourism communication festivals can play:
Context. Always keep in mind the context in which we operate, the evolution of the present day, both globally and locally. And act accordingly
Awareness. Become aware of the importance of being propositive – and not intrusive – at a time like the present
Reveal. Let’s not forget that one of the great secrets of the tourism industry is to promote the travelers’ desire for knowledge and inspiration,
Empathy. Put on each other’s shoes, in this case the customer. There is no other way: we always have to put our customers at the center. We need to explore ways to provide opportunities for DMOs, producers, independent producers or agencies that have relied on tourism communication festivals as their outreach and promotion platforms.
Quarantine has fired up internet usage (3), which is the link with the world for most confined people. At Terres Travel Festival we have created the project Terres #getinspired, a platform hosted on our website where we make available some of the videos which have participated in the latest editions of our festival. Each week new pieces will be added to cover all the participants in the three editions – until now – of our festival.
We believe that by ordering our archive, making it easily accessible and intuitively packing, we are serving citizens in confinement as well as the DMOs and agencies that have trusted ours. festival as a platform to showcase their audiovisual productions.
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(1) International Tourism Higlights. 2019 Edition. UNTWO, 2019.
(2) TRAVEL & TOURISM ECONOMIC IMPACT 2019 WORLD. World Travel & Tourism Council, 2019.
(3) ”On Tuesday, March 10, DE-CIX Frankfurt, the world’s largest internet exchange point, reached a record 9.1 Terabit per second”. https://www.abc.es/tecnologia/redes/abci-estado-alarma-provoca-record-consumo-internet-madrid-202003171241_noticia.html