The president of the Cluster participated in the presentation of the international meeting organised by the Spanish Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism.
Specialists from the academic, research, professional and institutional fields will meet next October (on 6, 7 and 8) in Ourense to discuss the new tourism after the pandemic and the challenges it has to face in terms of innovation, digitisation, sustainability and competitiveness. These are the central themes of the 22nd international congress being organised by the Spanish Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (AECIT) and whose countdown officially began with the presentation ceremony held on Friday 17 at the Ourense Campus of the University of Vigo.
The president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster, Cesáreo Pardal, took part in the launch of this initiative along with the director of Galicia Tourism, Nava Castro; the president of the Provincial Council of Ourense, Manuel Baltar; the dean of the Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism of Ourense, Montserrat Cruz; the commissioner of Institutional Coordination of the University of Vigo, Elena Rivo; the president of the organizing committee of the congress, José Antonio Fraiz, and the deputy mayor of the City Council of Ourense, Armando Ojea. In his speech, Cesáreo Pardal highlighted the importance of the four themes that will serve as the focus of the congress and explained that if the tourism sector manages to combine innovation, digitisation, sustainability and competitiveness, it will be able to ensure its profitability.
Those present also stressed the importance for Ourense, and for Galicia in general, of holding a meeting that will bring together national and international experts and that will allow, in the words of its organisers, “to establish synergies between the academic-scientific world, those responsible for public management and the business sector; to facilitate the updating of knowledge on aspects of tourism planning and management and to know different models of management and exploitation of tourism resources”.
Aecit, founded in 1994, brings together professors, researchers and professionals of recognised prestige in the ecosystem of the tourism sector, companies, universities, institutions and consultancy. Among its members is the University of Vigo, whose Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism in Ourense already organised the international congress in 2012. On that occasion, more than half a thousand attendees came to its call. The new edition of the congress is arousing great expectation, as evidenced by the fact that they have already received more than a hundred papers from 28 universities from all over Spain and countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Portugal.