How do you think new technologies are transforming the tourism sector?    

They are radically transforming it. Especially generative artificial intelligence. I would like to comment that, for example, in a recently published study on travelers in the United States, 18% used artificial intelligence to plan their trips last year and this year it is expected to be 50%.

How can digitalization help to attract visitors to lesser known or rural destinations?

Having a good website optimized for SEO, that is, making sure that your name appears in Google, that your services appear, having a good web analytics system that allows you to make decisions based on real information, that is, seeing what keywords bring you traffic and what that traffic does on your website, whether it converts or not, and optimizing it for the traffic that does convert.

Then use social networks and all the digital marketing tools we have. Newsletters, having a newsletter, maintaining a relationship through the networks with customers you already have, but also opening up to new customers and therefore publish and invest some advertising to reach many more people. Because unfortunately, social networks have become something that is pay to play, so either you pay or they don't work.

What strategies would you recommend to small tourism companies to reach a wider audience?

For me the key factor is precise segmentation, in other words, what I was saying about playing roles with AI and understanding that market segment very well, what it adds value to and how I can convince it, and then you create messages for specific segments and pages within your website for specific segments. And then you can go to full personalization because you are segmenting.

The problem I see with websites many times is that they don't segment. That is to say, it is a website for everyone and within the website there are no areas for families with children, for people over 60 years old, for groups of friends. And then they try to give a message that is everything for everyone, the coffee for everyone that we call it, and that doesn't work and you never connect emotionally with the visitors.

A technique that is like SEO, but for AIS is called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). What I recommend to companies is to start by searching for your name in Chat GPT or Gemini, see what the AI tells them about your company.

Ask for information about their services and see what source they are using, that is, what references they use, and with all this information see if the AI is well informed with everything the company is doing or if there is a need to correct AI content which is obviously done from the website itself.

What global trends in the digitalization of tourism do you consider most relevant for Spanish SMEs?

The first thing is sustainable tourism. In other words, everything is about sustainable tourism and sustainability in its 3 aspects: economic, cultural and ecological.

Companies have to find a way to communicate, as some of the 17 sustainable tourism goals of the United Nations that were published for the 2030 Agenda.

Another trend is immersive experiences, that is, the whole part of augmented reality and virtual reality. Now, these days in Barcelona, for example, Casa Batlló is doing a mapping on its facade and people are not only going there to see Casa Batlló, but also to see the mapping. In other words, this type of immersive experience is worth taking into account.

The whole issue of the metaverse and the digital experiences that the metaverse became out of place when generative artificial intelligence appeared.  I think it is going to be revalued, especially because with artificial intelligence things can be done with a little more quality than until now.

Then there is contactless tourism, that is, mobile payments, automatic check-in, digital keys, all this type of technology is going to increase and will be implemented during 2025 and 2026.