On 25th June, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) organised the second World Conference on Smart Destinations, which took place in Oviedo, Spain.
The ‘Destination Revenue Management’ initiative, implemented by Charentes Tourisme and its partners (Ré Destination, Oléron Island and Marennes Tourist Office, La Rochelle Education Group, IAE La Rochelle and SYNHORCAT hotel trade union), in partnership with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and accompanied by C&L Associés, revenue management experts, was presented by Dr Luc Béal of La Rochelle Education Group.
Organised by the World Tourism Organization, the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda of Spain and the Principality of Asturias, the 2nd UNWTO World Conference on Smart Destinations was held in Oviedo (Asturias, Spain) from 25th - 27th June 2018.
The Conference brought together government representatives, private sector entities, researchers and academics, as well as technology centres. The event was an important platform for participants to share knowledge, build partnerships and advance in their understanding about the development and key elements of smart destinations.
The 2018 edition included themes such as :
- The digital transformation within destinations
- Technological solutions for impact monitoring
- Smart destination governance
- The importance of new technologies for sustainable development
- Standardisation frameworks, data accessibility and cyber-security
- The role of participatory approaches and open platforms
- Data-driven success stories and best practices in tourism innovation
During this conference, France’s specific situation in the field of tourism was presented. As one of the primary tourist destinations in terms of visitor numbers, its hotel industry is mostly unaffiliated to large international groups (Hilton, Accor, Marriott etc.) and suffers from many issues such as the loss of a large number of establishments, poor control of distribution etc. In terms of local and regional governance, France, which was a pioneer in having been one of the first countries to deploy a network of tourism offices, is now urgently faced with the need to redefine the role of institutional tourism organisations within the industry: value-added services, the ability to analyse the performance of destinations, the design and implementation of corrective action (promotions, new offers etc.).
The ‘Destination Revenue Management’ initiative, presented by Luc Béal, responds perfectly to such issues. The first results of this initiative were presented and discussed: an analysis of the considerable data collected, forecasting related to the 2018 summer season and recommendations for operational actions to be implemented for an optimisation of the achievable turnover relative to the scale of each destination.
