CONCLUSIONS

SUMMIT CONCLUSIONS

CEAV, along with the Junta de Andalucía, the Patronato de Turismo de la Diputación de Granada, and the Granada City Council, organised the 7th World Summit of Travel Agencies Associations in Granada from 8 to 10 November 2023. The event brought together almost 200 participants from the five continents, who held presentations and discussions on the current situation of the industry and future perspectives.

The first session started with the presentation of the Granada and Andalusia destinations and continued with a debate moderated by Dave Keating in which Juan Antonio Gómez García, Forward Keys Head of Marketing Intelligence, reviewed the behaviour of the global markets, highlighting the resilience of the tourism industry and the recovery, which "continues despite the uncertainties".

The representatives of ANATO, WTAAA, PIT, ECTAA, ACTA, ASTINDO, FATA and RATA presented the current situation of tourism in their areas and pointed out an increase in their markets, making emphasis on the consultant role of the travel agent, especially in a geopolitical context such as the current one, in which sometimes travellers have "unrealistic" fears of travelling to certain areas because they do not know the real situation. A clear example of this is the African continent.

Later on, ECTAA, ANVR, ANAV, TAFI and AESATA raised the future of sustainable tourism: the travel agency sector is not responding appropriately to the challenges of sustainability and action needs to be accelerated.

Reference was made to how travel agents can influence travellers to understand their travel footprint and how they can mitigate their environmental impact. In addition, it was pointed out that agencies can choose suppliers that place importance on sustainability. All concluded that there is a need to "move from the conversation, which is interesting, to actions, which are what really matter".

The next panel focused on new customer trends in travel. Amadeus presented a report establishing four tribes of travellers: experimentalists, memory-makers, influencers and pioneers, and Expedia highlighted that, according to its research, travellers spend an average of five hours searching the internet to choose a trip, which they tend to book two months in advance.

During the afternoon, the Time to Share panel took place, in which ECTAA, ABTA, AITO, EU Travel Tech and Perseuss shared their experiences.

The first panel of the second day discussed the relationship between travel agencies and airlines, noting the tension between both over the past two years and the need for agreement and looking to the future in terms of opportunities rather than obstacles.

Innovation in travel was the topic of the second panel. Finally, Carlos Garrido, President of CEAV, and José Manuel Lastra, First Vice-President, opened a final discussion with all the attendees.

The summit, which was supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport of the Andalusian Regional Government, the Granada City Council, the Tourism Board of the Granada Provincial Council and CEAV's usual collaborators (Amadeus, Aon, Civitatis, Iberia, Iberia Cards, Pipeline, Renfe and Turespaña), has made the city the focus of attention for travel agencies and the sector's top representatives. For the organisation of the event, CEAV has also worked with the Provincial Association of Travel Agencies and PCOs of Granada, the Andalusian Federation of Travel Agencies and the Provincial Federation of Hotel and Tourism Companies of Granada.