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Working today for the tourism of the future

Undoubtedly, what we suffered with Covid-19 has made us rethink several issues such as how we want the future of the tourism sector to be. This must be based on four important concepts on which we must make an effort:

1. Technology: no one doubts that it is our great partner. AI, Big Data, Machine learning, NFTs … all this must be used to get closer to and anticipate the needs of people and companies.
2. Sustainability: we cannot conceive of the next tourism without being sustainable and, furthermore, in a circular way. With all the actors involved in it hand in hand so that it works efficiently.
3. Efficiency: anticipating what customers and companies need. Only then, we will survive the continuous changes on the scene. As I said before: here technology is our great strategic partner.
4. Innovation and Knowledge: the know-how generated by our companies in the sector is the great asset that must be protected. Intellectual Property is the weapon to differentiate ourselves and create value. So much so that the bases of the European Next Generation Funds claim it, being an extraordinarily important part for the nearly 3,400 million that we will receive in the field in the next two years^**.

How we do things and how different they are will be the key to the future of the sector which is an unquestionable reality:

• Does anyone doubt that we should invest in adding value to our know-how assets?
• Can companies afford that everything invested in innovation and knowledge generation is left unprotected?
• Do we doubt at this point – and as the European Union reminds us – that Intellectual Property is the tool to create that differentiating value?

Competing markets such as Italy, France, Greece are working on a national tourism plan to redesign or reinvent globally their sector. As a country and a world power in the tourism sector, we must lead by having our own plan that makes us:

• More competitive
• More sustainable
• More innovative

Technology is the tool for this:  bring the tourism of tomorrow closer to what people need; make it more sustainable and greener; create quality employment and to offer precisely quality. A more human quality, more aimed at people, to bring destinations closer to them and for them to circularly take care of those destinations.

A new study published by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) shows that companies that own at least one patent, registered design or trademark generate, on average, 20% more income per employee than companies that do not have any of these industrial property rights (IPR). In addition, it was found that these IPR-owning companies pay 19% more wages on average than other companies^*.

The study, entitled “Intellectual property rights and firm performance in the EU”, confirms the strong and positive relationship between the ownership of different types of Intellectual Property rights by part of a company and its economic results. In terms of individual Intellectual Property rights, patent ownership, with 36% more revenue per employee and 53% more salaries, shows the strongest link to a company’s performance when compared to companies that do not own any IPR, followed by ownership of registered designs (with 32% more income and 30% more salaries) and brands (21% more income and 17% more salaries).

Tourism is and will continue being our great productive sector. The idea is that it continues to be more efficient for people, companies, and the planet itself.

* Source IDEPA

** Report of the European Parliament on intellectual property rights for the development of technologies related to artificial intelligence

Bartolomé Arrom