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As the recovery of the sector is underway, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) as part of World Tourism Day highlights the opportunity to rethink how we deal with tourism.
This means putting people and planet first and bringing everyone from governments and businesses to local communities together around a shared vision for a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient sector.
With a theme "Rethinking Tourism" (Rethinking Tourism), this year's World Tourism Day celebration focused on reimagining the growth of the sector, both in terms of size and importance. The goal of the topic "Thinking Tourism" is to stimulate discussion about thinking about tourism for development through education and jobs, as well as the impact of tourism on the planet and opportunities for more sustainable growth.
"The potential of tourism is enormous and we have a shared responsibility to ensure that it is fully exploited. On World Tourism Day 2022, UNWTO is calling on everyone from tourism workers to tourists themselves, as well as small businesses, large corporations and governments to think and rethink what we are doing and how we do it"said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.
Something good comes out of every crisis. We are sincerely looking forward to the guests again. Are we still looking forward to the guests or are we back to the old ways?
If this crisis has taught us anything, it's to appreciate our guests again and not take tourism for granted. I sincerely hope that it will remain and that we will not quickly return to the old mindset.
The crisis also showed how important tourism is for the entire economy, and especially for the connected chains, since tourism connects vertically and horizontally various other industries.
After this summer season, it is easier to breathe, but that does not mean that tourism will return to the way it was before. The question is how ready we are for changes, because those who will follow them will only increase the gap between successful and less successful destinations. Croatia has to keep up with all the trends, in fact, I think it has to create them itself.
Tourism is recovering and changing. But have we started with a new paradigm? Did we learn something? Do we have the strength and will to change? Are we ready to take a step forward? For synergy? Focus on market development? Sustainable and strategic development?
Our systemic strategic problems still remain. They didn't disappear. In fact, they are getting deeper and deeper because there are more and more beds and guests.
A new era of tourism is coming, which will return even stronger and stronger. But also different. Which path we will take depends only on us.
We have to stop just talking and pointing out the same problems at various conferences year after year, which have been repeated for 20 years. Finally, we need a clear vision, strategy and action plans to launch a new tourism paradigm.
One is desire, and something quite another is goal.
We can only do this if we start dealing with the strategic development of destinations, only with synergy both in the destination and in the entire system, only if the profession finally wakes up and exerts positive market pressure to move things from stories and wishes to concrete goals. Only if we stop looking only at ourselves, but start looking at the bigger picture.
And yes, we need tourist boards. I understand the negative narrative towards the system, but demanding the shutdown of tourist boards, as well as HTZ, is pure populism.
The current system of tourist boards has proven to be inefficient and unproductive. There are various factors why this is so. But most certainly tourist boards are crucial for strategic development. In what form and how to proceed is for professional reasoned discussion. The system of tourist associations needs to be transformed, modernized and strengthened. Do not extinguish. Someone has to deal with strategic development, and that is precisely the primary task of tourist boards, the private sector cannot do that.
We must strengthen the system, both financially and humanly, transform it into branding regions and DMO organizations, professionalize them, free them from legal "shackles" so that they can be market-oriented... because the strategic development of destinations depends on them. You don't need to be too smart, just look around and see how the systems in our environment or globally work. We all have internet. There are indeed positive business models, but again, everything is up to us. Do we still want to just talk and spontaneously "develop" or will we turn to strategic and sustainable growth and development.
There will always be a summer season, no matter how we turn it. At least numerically. Even despite the global pandemic. If we want to make a breakthrough in our tourism, we need business processes for that, not nature. To really start dealing with the development of tourism. Still, in the bigger picture, regardless of the positive individual examples, tourism still happens.
Everyone is fighting for the same tourists. Those who will push forward, be faster, more creative, more efficient and more innovative will be more successful.
Synergy and much better communication of everyone in the destination must be imperative for us, because we cannot do without each other. We all make a destination. No matter how small or big we are, we play an important role in the final image of the touristic mosaic of a destination.
And let's not forget, tourism is emotions, experiences and stories, and people travel to experience a new way and culture of living. That is why our focus must be on the authentic offer and the context of the destination, because the motive of arrival is not the bed, but the destination itself.
Let's be who we are - that's what tourists want to know, taste and experience.
World Tourism Day has been held on September 27 since 1980. That date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Organization's Statute in 1970, which created the conditions for the establishment of the UNWTO five years later.
Happy World Tourism Day.
