Kevin Nyango
TechInPacific – This year’s World Tourism Day’s theme will be about innovation and digital transformation. The decision is made by the fact that it has played a major role in the industry for over the past decades and its importance to provide opportunities for innovation and prepare the sector for the future of work.
In the industry, technology has helped to lower costs, increase operational efficiency, as well as improve services and customer experience. In addition, the use of technology has also helped to accelerate operations and make the traveling process much more enjoyable and efficient.
The World Tourism Day is annually celebrated around the world on September 2018. The celebration is a unique way to remind us of the potential and actual contribution of tourism to sustainable development.
This year’s event is expected to provide opportunities for technological advances to tourism including big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital platforms. These technological advances are on the map of sustainable development.
According to the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), digital advances and innovation are one of the best solutions to the challenge of combining continued growth with a more sustainable and accountable tourism sector.
The Secretary-General of UNWTO, Zurab Pololikashvili said, “Harnessing innovation and digital advances provide tourism with opportunities to improve inclusiveness, local community empowerment, and efficient resource management, amongst other objectives within the wider sustainable development agenda.”
The official event celebration will take place in Budapest, Hungary while other celebrations will take place worldwide. On the official celebration, there will be the announcement of the semifinalists of 1st UNWTO Tourism Startup Competition. It will be launched by UNWTO and Globalia.
To celebrate the event, the South Pacific Tourism Organization has just held a soft-launch of its brand new ‘Pacific Sustainable Tourism Network (PSTN)’ at their office in Suva. The tourism organization finds that the growth of digital space in the Pacific has increased, thus they have worked on to find innovative ways to provide advocacy for sustainable tourism. Moreover, the SPTO is also proud to have its three social influencers during the recent media roundtable including David Solomone, Dan Matanimeke, and Temesia Tuicaumia.
“As of January 2018, according to Hootesuite, Fiji has 500,000 social media users, that’s 55% of our population and 470,000 of those social media users access social media platforms via mobile phones. That’s 52% of our population that you have direct access to and our social influencers play a vital role in helping SPTO tap into that market with our sustainable tourism messaging.” The SPTO Chief Executive Officer, Chris Cocker said.
