The journey has to flow
In 2012 more than one billion travelers traveled. Were one billion and 35 million (to be exact) travelers who crossed borders and moved, fundamentally, by plane (It is estimated that 50% of that billion prefer to move air). Despite the positive balance of the data, for Rifai not everything is so well tied: UNWTO puts four challenges on the table.
LET IT FLOW
"There is too much bureaucracy," says Rifai . Red tape at borders can impede travel facilitation, and processes (and costs) such as issuing visas to travel to the United States slow down the flow of tourists. According to the UNWTO, the speeding up of the issuance of G20 visas could increase the number of international tourists to reach 122 million international tourists in 2015 (with the consequent generation of jobs that this increase would entail) . But it's still hard to deal with border security policies; however, little by little it seems that the strength of tourism can overcome fears when it comes to opening the barriers: for example, Obama has eased the conditions for issuing visas. Today Taleb Rifai emphasizes the importance of this point and, above all, in the case of the United States. It's not all done.
AIR CONNECTIVITY
And to let it flow, you also have to get rid of aerial barriers . To this end, the UNWTO will work together with the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and the IATA (the International Air Transport Association) . However, the two great protagonists in the flow of international tourism are others: Russian and Chinese tourists that have become the ones that generate the most income in their destination countries. ** With these data, it seems that we have to give air to the air.** Even so, we are perhaps facing one of the hardest challenges to face, especially in our country: how to deal with airline competition, low cost airlines, the debate on air safety, the critical situation of the airlines due to the crisis?
FISCAL CONSOLIDATION
And the great doubt arises in the Spanish case: is it possible to strike a balance between meeting the deficit targets, austerity policies and tourism coming out unscathed? For now, with macroeconomic data in hand, Taleb Rifai has specified today that Spain has managed to consolidate tourism growth from the transfer of tourists North Africa after the Arab Spring. What will happen in 2013? Expectations are encouraging in Europe as a whole (an increase of 3.4% is expected). Now it's time to play at home. And wait.
CONSUMER PROTECTION
Promote responsible consumption, protect users but without neglecting the rights of businessmen. The goal that the UNWTO has set for itself is the ability to respond to all the agents involved in the trip . Mission Impossible? For now, target set.
After the approach of the four great challenges, there remains an element that cuts across all of them: Sustainability, the great workhorse. It is not trivial that among the results of the 2012 data, emerging economies consolidate themselves at the head of tourism growth ( Asia and Pacific increased by 7%, showing a more than remarkable recovery after the tsunami in Japan and Africa , despite the conflicts in the northern area, registered an increase of 6%) , regions where natural heritage and landscape and nature tourism is the main protagonist.
UNWTO has five observatories (the sixth will open this year in Greece) that try to analyze how the social factor, the economic-financial factor and the environment interact with each other with the arrival of tourists. In other words, it calculates what animal and plant species are in that environment, who enters it, how this entry affects the environment over the years, where the income produced is directed... Everything to try to improve the preservation of the place and the status of travelers and the receiving population.
In the context of FITUR, these challenges will be dealt with in greater depth and, above all, a presentation will be dedicated to green tourism and this sustainability: “FITURGreen 2013, the energy of tourism” , on January 30 and February 1 in Pavilion 10.
This year we have homework