Tourism and training go hand in hand; with the goal of nurturing Malaga’s entrepreneurial foundation and answering the request of Foro de Turismo members, Turismo Costa del Sol organised the InboundTravel training from 27 to 28 September. The event, celebrated in part for World Tourism Day, brought together around 150 attendees each day and had speakers, roundtables and workshops that provided value and knowledge to the Costa del Sol tourism industry.
The market is in a moment of big change associated with factors like digitalisation, sustainability and connectivity. The goal of this tourism training event, held in the facilities of the Diputación de Málaga (Auditorio Edgar Neville and La Térmica), was to teach different agents how to intervene in the tourism sector, show best practices and introduce the latest advances to improve the sector’s competitiveness.
Throughout two days, the event hosted speakers, roundtable discussions and workshops in which different professionals from the tourism, content creation, online marketing and social media industries shared their experience. Airline representatives and tourism operators (Ryanair, Vueling, AENA) and digital marketing experts like Phil González, Clara Soler and Amparo García Faus shared their expertise, applied to the tourism industry.
After the presentation of President Francisco Salado, Víctor Pérez García, Digital Growth Manager, was tasked with opening the training with a speech about the Metaverse and virtual tourism. After his talk, one of InboundTravel’s most interesting roundtables was held about connectivity. Manuel Molina (Hosteltur Director) moderated the speech with Elena Cabrera (Country Manager Spain and Portugal de Ryanair), Jordi Pla Pintre (Vueling Strategy and Flight Plan Director), Juan Alberto Martín Mora (Client Relation Division Manager) and Ricard Querol (General Manager - Airports and Tourism Organisations of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays) as participants. Although the members of the round table agreed that we are living in an uncertain situation in which it is practically impossible to make forecasts for the future, Juan Alberto Martín emphasised that "Malaga has managed to diversify the market to attract different types of tourists.”
Sustainability was another recurring theme at the round table. Elena Cabrera announced that Ryanair has added three new sustainable aircraft to its fleet, capable of saving up to 40% of CO2 emissions. In addition, Cabrera assured that her company will increase capacity by 17% this winter.
The afternoon programme of the event included a more practical side with workshops that explored the application of digitalisation tools in the tourism sector. The content of these workshops revolved around the use of social networks, content creation and the use of specific technological tools.
Digital transformation applied to the tourism sector was the focus of workshops such as "Tourism Intelligence as a strategic axis in the competitiveness of destinations,” led by sector experts, or the workshop "The success of branding campaigns and new platforms: how to measure it?” where Sara Rodríguez Borlado (Social Media Specialist) and Carla Ortega (Senior SEO, PPC & Analytics Expert at WAM) shared the keys to measuring the work of digital media campaigns. Meanwhile, in her presentation "The reality of social networks beyond the smoke," marketing and communication consultant Clara Soler said that "social networks appear today in all purchasing processes."
Chatbots and virtual assistants, converting leads into customers, SEO for tourist accommodation, copywriting to get customers or the importance of influencer strategies for business development were some of the topics that were also discussed at the InboundTravel conference.
Promoting Malaga as a tourist destination and supporting the growth of the economy, designing and executing projects at the service of private companies and public entities and providing the business network with the necessary tools to meet their objectives were the main objectives of these training sessions aimed at the Costa del Sol tourism sector. President Francisco Salado assured attendees that at Costa del Sol Tourism, all efforts are focused on creating and making all the necessary tools available to entrepreneurs, such as Big Data, to help professionals in the tourism sector. He also explained the intention of Costa del Sol Tourism to "continue working along the lines of public-private cooperation, which has contributed to placing the destination in a leading position.”
