The Spanish economy is just starting to recover its ‘pulse rate’ after the global pandemic. COVID, however, is still making some of its effects felt, especially in the SME sector, in the form of mistrust from many consumers, partial restrictions and even major changes in the operational flows in many sectors. With plenty of omens on the horizon of a major crisis in the autumn of this year, countries are turning to their most important economic industries for backup.

In Spain’s case, without a doubt, the most strategically important economic driver is tourism. And thanks to the lessons of successive lockdowns, SMEs in Spain in this sector have already seen first-hand how digitalisation is the transformational vector to help overcome the turbulence ahead. The United Nation’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has launched a support programme precisely so that the shift to digital is the powerhouse behind this change.

An innovative tool for tourism SMEs

The UNWTO Secretary General, Zurab Pololikashvili, explains that “small businesses are the backbone of tourism. The Digital Futures Programme will help them recover from the repercussions of the pandemic and boost the sector with the opportunities innovation and new technologies bring”.

The Digital Futures database is an innovative tool for the sector, designed to help diagnose the degree of digitalisation achieved by each of the SMEs enrolled on the programme. This diagnosis is based on:

• connectivity
• business growth
• digital commerce
• macro data
• analytics
• payments and security

Digital pathways based on the needs of individual SMEs

Once a diagnosis has been made, Digital Futures offers SMEs the choice of a variety of ‘digital pathways’ and tools that can help. Digital pathways are selected based on impact assessments of the SMEs that adopted digital and disruptive technologies during the COVID-19 crisis, market trends and various reports from the UNWTO and other organisations that have identified digital fluidity, skills shortages and needs in different tourism sectors and sub-sectors.

These digital pathways offer the best practical tools from the leading technology firms that are part of the program. The content and tools are structured in five key areas, based on the diagnostic criteria above, allowing SMEs to identify their main requirements and adapt a digital pathway determined by a digital readiness tool and accelerate their digital transformation.

Traditional investment, coupled with innovation

The UNWTO has three main objectives in mind with this programme. On the one hand, improving access to funding and investment by connecting key tourism stakeholders within a high-level global network. But it also seeks to promote investments that drive economic growth, job creation and tourism sustainability with both public and private sources of capital. And, finally, it’s about developing long-term investment mechanisms through alliances with key stakeholders in order to mobilise resources with a positive impact on tourism.

Digital Futures sees this as a strategic framework, especially in terms of the latter two objectives. And, as the organisation itself puts it, “it’s an opportunity not just to get back to how things were before the pandemic hit, but – thanks to innovation and digitalisation – to definitively modernise the tourism sector at its core, SMEs”.