Introduction

In the sixth INTO Seminar held in October 2009, analysis was made of how globalisation and changes in information and communication technologies have given rise to the fact that it is now the tourism consumers themselves who set the trends in consumption, who decide the type of product they want, how they want to consume it, how they want to communicate their experiences, and so on. This has resulted in the businessperson having to wait to discover this change in behaviour and then adapt their product or service to the demand. In other words, it is no longer the tourism producer who ultimately controls the product or information that they want to transfer to the customer, and neither is it the intermediary.

In this latest INTO 2010 Seminar, a proposal is made to study the behaviour of the tourism sector from knowledge generation and transfer of the same from academic environments and research centres towards the business world. This will bring full circle the R+D+i analysis on the change in the sector's behaviour.

The objective of this event is, therefore, to find out how a real change in the business sector can be promoted through knowledge-experience and the solutions research offers. This is a necessary change given the consequences of the power of this demand. For this reason, the title chosen for this year’s event is:

Tourist, Sustainability and Technology.
Fields of Research for Competitiveness in Tourism

There are numerous definitions by different authors on competitiveness amongst tourist destinations. In one example it is considered "the capacity of a destination to create and integrate value-added products that permit the sustainability of local resources and maintain its position in the market with respect to its competitors" (Hassan, 2000). Ritchie and Crouch (2000) define it as “the capacity of a country to create added value and thereby increase the national wellbeing through the management of advantages and processes, attractiveness, aggressiveness and proximity, incorporating relationships between the same into an economic and social model".


CIDTUR (Centre for Tourism Research and Development) has been created in the Balearic Islands to help accomplish the goal of this Seminar. CIDTUR’s strategic objective is to become the agent that connects the needs of the destination with the production sector. This is to be achieved with new knowledge and with expertise originating from the research environment, generating said knowledge without forgoing the creation or promotion of specific research groups that complete the national panorama as and when circumstances so require.

CIDTUR has carried out an analysis in the sector uniting the research offer with the needs of the business sector. It has also developed a study which has provided the axes for the structure of the Seminar sessions.

To define these axes, CIDTUR has taken three criteria into account: typology of the needs identified in the sector; consistency with Horizonte 2020, the Spanish Tourism Plan; and coherence with the National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation 2008-2011. The 5 axes defined are: customers, technology, sustainability, human capital and competitiveness.

For the development of the programme of conference sessions and round tables, customers, technology and sustainability have been chosen as the principal elements to analyse, considering the axis of competitiveness intrinsic to each one of them. These three axes will be combined with the three principal fields of activity in the sector: distribution, destination and product.

The following table has been drawn up showing the grouping of all the elements mentioned, with the content of each one being the topic of the paper or round table to be presented at the Seminar. Academic papers with good practices in the business sector are also intersected:



In addition, there will be another important session presented in this field on “Systems of public/private financing for research”. Which tools are available to enable more and better investment in research and knowledge transfer?

Finally, and as a round-up of conclusions, CIDTUR will moderate the fifth session of the Seminar under the title “Science for competitiveness”. This round table seeks to establish an agenda of proposals for knowledge generation that will enable any destination to recuperate its competitiveness, as in the case of the Balearics.