TIS – Tourism Innovation Summit 2021 will take place from November 10-12, 2021

Saturday, November 6, 2021

The second edition of TIS – Tourism Innovation Summit 2021, which will take place from November 10 to 12 in Seville (FIBES), aims to reactivate tourism demand and activity in a sustainable way. Hotel chains are acquiring a growing commitment to respect the environment, setting ambitious goals and working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; one of the main problems of the tourism sector, since it is estimated that 40% of these global emissions in 2025 will come from tourism.

TIS2021 will be the space where new ideas will be generated to renew the hotel sector, adapt the offer to the new paradigm and promote consumption habits aligned with a more sustainable trend. To this end, the tourism innovation summit will include among its speakers prominent hoteliers such as Raúl González, EMEA CEO of the Barceló Group, Kike Sarasola, President of Room Mate, and Hugo Rovira, Managing Director of Southern Europe of NH Hoteles.

Innovation will be the essential asset to restore hotel occupancy in a sustainable way. Contactless on-site services, the improvement in the online booking experience and the automation of lighting or ventilation services are some of the main trends in full swing. Diego Calvo, CEO and co-founder of Concept Hotel Group, and Juan Torregrosa, director of operations of Palladium Hotel Group, will explain how innovation can be promoted, democratizing the use of technology, both in large hotel chains and in smaller ones.

Together with them, Marc Rahola, CEO and founder of OD Hotels, will be at TIS2021 to highlight the importance of failure as a path to success. How to manage a business making mistakes repeatedly and how to deal with the mistakes made? This will be Rahola’s vision, which will give a more real and closer perspective of the hotel industry.

New ‘hybrid’ hotel models

Another topic to be addressed at TIS2021 will be the evolution of the classic hotel concept. The health crisis and the proliferation of teleworking have promoted new models of hybrid hotels, on the way between the classic accommodation and the office, which offer a joint service of accommodation and the possibility of remote work. Juan Julià, founder of Axel Hotels, and Victor Tofan, Cloudbeds sales director, will explore this new market trend.

In addition, TIS2021 will feature startups and innovation projects that will present their disruptive ideas focused on renewing the hotel industry. Startups such as Deepupsel, a Spanish startup that uses artificial intelligence applied to hotel upselling and predictive machine learning to identify the up and cross-sell items with the highest probability of purchase by each customer 24 hours before their arrival at the hotel; or the French startup La Voyageuse, a French startup recognized by the UNWTO for its innovation in Sustainable Tourism and Gender Equality. It is the first secure online platform to share a home with women who travel alone.

TIS2021 will also have a showroom space in which more than 150 exhibiting firms will present their latest solutions in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Cybersecurity, Automation, Internet of Things, process automation, virtual reality or mobility solutions. Firms such as Accenture, Amadeus, CaixaBank, City Sightseeing Worldwide, Deloitte, Evolutio-Genesys, EY, ForwardKeys, Mabrian, Mastercard, Telefónica Empresas, Cloudbeds, Convertix, Globant, Minsait, Orange and Past View, and organizations such as WTTC, UNWTO, Skal International, NECSTouR, European Cities Marketing, Arival, Biosphere, Destinations International, MPI and PATA, among others, have shown their support and willingness to participate in this second edition, which aims to become the benchmark innovation summit for the industry.

IFEMA MADRID continues to work on strengthening its sustainability policies for the benefit of its surrounding environment. In this regard, in line with the work carried out in 2020, the institution has published the first Sustainable Participation Guides for exhibitors and visitors, with the aim of contributing to the positioning of the fair sector before the challenge of the 2030 Agenda.

These Guides contain a set of recommendations following the lifecycle of participation in a fair or event, so that any participant in one of those activities can make it a sustainable experience and reduce its impact.

The Guide to Sustainable Participation for exhibitors analyses each of the aspects that can potentially be addressed with sustainability in mind, throughout a company’s itinerary, from the moment it makes the decision to participate in a fair until its completion, dismantling, and the journey back to its destination. It is an analysis of the responses that companies deciding to exhibit at a fair will encounter during its lifecycle, and which they can turn into opportunities to collaborate in the achievement of the sustainable development goals. With recommendations ranging from the choice of the appropriate materials for the construction of the stand, taking in the treatment of waste, packaging and chemical products, to safety and the entry and exit of goods, neither forgetting the sustainable management of catering and transport, among many other aspects. Of course, these recommendations are also of interest to assembly companies and agencies.

On the other hand, the Sustainable Participation Guide for visitors includes a series of recommendations that all those who attend a fair or event, both for business and leisure, can follow. The Guide therefore recommends entry using the digital ticket, using public or shared transport to travel to the venues, rational and adequate use of resources during their visit, sending suggestions to the organisation after their visit, etc.

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