Technological innovation is the biggest driver of the tourism industry and its benefits should be harnessed to develop an important activity in the Balearic economy.
Among technological developments, Artificial Intelligence is at the center of discussions as it will represent a great “revolution”, although it is still immersed in great debates on issues such as the reliability, legality and ethics of the information it provides. Big Data, Cloud Computing and Robotization are key to tourism growth, with the Balearic Islands and Mallorca playing a fundamental role in both the implementation and export of these advances worldwide.
These were the main results of the Futuribles&Mallorca Turismo Plus Forum, which was held last Thursday at the Diario de Mallorca club with the participation of leading experts in the field.
This analysis and reflection meeting was held under the sponsorship of Telefónica, CaixaBank and Consell de Mallorca’s Fundació Mallorca Turisme, in collaboration with FEHM, HO Group, MicroStrategy and Fundació Impulsa Balears.
Island Tourism Manager attended the analysis and reflection meeting, Carla del Moral; Technical director of Fundación Impulsa, Antoni Riera; President of the Turistec International cluster, Jaume Monserrat; CIO of W2M (Iberostar Group), Joan Barcelona; President of Mallorca Hotels Federation (FEHM) Maria Frontera; director of Major Companies of the Telefónica East Region; Pilar Ferrer and MicroStrategy Account Director, Xavier Bonany.
Director of Diario de Mallorca, Marisa GoniHe opened the event presented by the tourism communication consultant, Pepa Olmedo. Considering the changes brought by artificial intelligence, robotics, digitalization or big data, Goñi emphasized that “it is the tourism sector that faces the changes the fastest.” “Tourists will find us” through artificial intelligence, he warned, imitating how personalized trips are approached through artificial intelligence .
Later, Antoni Riera, technical director of Fundación Impulsa, gave a presentation on the key role of innovation, titled The opportunity to replace T with t. “Today, measuring the success of tourism by how many tourists come is no longer valid. Not even in terms of how much he spends,” Riera argued.
change time
The technical director of Fundació Impulsa Balears warned that “this time of change requires new measurements and new indicators.”
He called for decision-making processes in tourism to be managed with technology. Because “the economy can continue to grow thanks to this” in the face of negative externalities and limited natural resources.
“In light of the new context in which we find ourselves”, Impulsa’s technical director called for “inertia” to be put aside because we have a solution to the negative externalities and problems of tourism.
The day continued with a roundtable discussion moderated by Olmedo and attended by Jaume Monserrat, president of the international Turistec cluster; MicroStrategy Account Director Xavier Bonany; Pilar Ferrer, Telefónica East Region Majors Manager; Joan Barceló, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of World2Meet (W2M) and María Frontera, president of the Federation of Mallorca Hoteliers (FEHM).
“Efforts in the Turistec cluster are focusing on how AI will impact two years from now,” Monserrat said, adding that “the sudden emergence of ChatGPT has accelerated this process.”
For Barceló, “it is a big advantage that we start from a blank page” for “a young project like W2M”, a vertically structured tourism company (part of the Iberostar Group) whose aim is to offer services to new travellers, and in terms of technology it is “very sexy”. He believes technology “should serve a purpose: the needs of new travelers who demand flexibility in hiring and unique experiences.” “You can’t offer them if there isn’t a sufficient technological base.”
“Innovation is in our DNA,” Pilar Ferrer said at Telefónica. He added that they have already spent almost ten years on robotization processes and reminded that the company will celebrate its centenary in five months. “15 to 25 percent of savings and efficiency in companies come from digitalization,” she summarized. In his view, when faced with the challenges of technological changes – “we must be pioneers in delivering them” – “the important thing is not to put more resources in, but to make things more efficient.” Telefónica’s management touched on the support they provide to their customers and, as in b2b, “although we are still a telecommunications company, we now earn more from IT services than from communications.”
MicroStrategy’s Bonany explained that they help companies “democratize data, which means delivering it to that person practically without asking.” This is called injecting information. Regarding his experience with AI, he emphasized the importance of “reliability of the data” because “it is a challenge to get the answer right.” That’s why he warned about what’s known as a “hallucination” when you “answer something wrong.” ChatGPT does this, it’s very unfortunate. “They say that artificial intelligence, the brother-in-law, knows everything, and if not, he invented it,” Barceló joked.
technology promotion
“At FEHM, we support employees to embrace technology,” said Frontera, reminding how the covid crisis created a “handbrake” effect and how the hotel industry “made a growth move”. “Public Administration lags behind and hinders us because we are dependent on third parties; especially since we now have the opportunity to make good investments with European funds.
“Artificial intelligence will be a big revolution, but not yet,” Barceló said. Its “real application is not yet.” There are also unresolved debates regarding legality, privacy, and the regulation of privacy or ethics. “This is not ethics per se, ethics is something that humans have and this needs to be transferred to AI,” added the W2M CIO. Given these challenges to solve, Barceló explained that in the case of his group, currently the dedicated AI unit is mainly focused on “the internal customer, of course.” In this context, Ferrer added that “the source of ethical problems is generative AI that has not yet learned everything.” For his part, Monserrat added another challenge: «This technology will affect business models because it is expensive; “There will be no further disruption.”
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The event ended with a corporate closing by Carla del Moral, island director of Tourism for Offer and Quality, who noted the need to “unite efforts” and leveraged Consell’s “commitment to technology” for its modernization, “because “Technology” is a transformative lever.”
Attendees and attendees had the opportunity to drink cocktails at the Daily Club facilities at the end of the event. related to Majorca.