WTCF hold “Best Practices of Smart Tourism in Cities” panel in this year’s WTM

The Site of the Forum

The World Travel Market 2019 (WTM) was opened on November 4th, London local time. On November 5th, the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) held its second panel as a WTM content partner, which themes on “Best Practices of Smart Tourism in Cities”.

This panel aims to discuss the best solution for the development of smart tourism in cities, and share the developmental experience of smart tourism cities. On the panel, Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Director of the eTourism Lab and Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research, Bournemouth University, made an interpretation about smart tourism. Ms. Esencan Terzibasoglu, Special Advisor to the Secretary General of WTCF, former Director of Destination Management and Quality Programme at UNWTO, analyzed the Global Report on Smart Tourism in Cities released by WTCF in September this year. She focused on the key principles of “smart tourism” and “smart destination management” and the new way of thinking in developing smart tourism. Zhang Yun, Sales Director of Tencent Cloud Europe, Miguel Sanz, Tourism Director, Madrid Destino and Tia Hallanoro, Marketing Communications Director, Helsinki Marketing took part in this panel, sharing their respective development experiences and successful cases in smart tourism cities. Sascha Stange, Deputy Director, Liaison Department, WTCF, moderated the panel.

The Forum Guests

The Global Report on Smart Tourism in Cities is one of the important academic achievements of WTCF, aiming to lead smart tourism issues worldwide. The report made an overall assessment on the development of smart tourism in 37 international tourism cities by conducting surveys, and made an in-depth analysis on that specific data. The report emphasized the practice of smart tourism development among 9 members of WTCF, including Beijing, Buenos Aires, Helsinki, Chengdu, Kunming, Madrid, Marrakech, Tencent and Trip.com Group. It also especially highlights the success of MIT Senseable City Lab in smart city development.

WTM is a member of WTCF and also an annual event for the global tourism industry, attracting over 70 tourism Ministers and 3000 members of the international media each year. This year, almost 5000 exhibiting companies and over 51000 attendees take part at WTM.

World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), voluntarily formed by famous tourism cities and tourism-related institutions in the world under the initiative of Beijing, is the world’s first international tourism organization focusing on cities. Since its inception in 2012, WTCF’s city members and institutional members has grown from 58 to 218. WTCF is credited as the fastest-growing international tourism organization.