The future of tourism must be human-centric – WTTC Lessons Learnt

As already reported, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) published the report “Lessons Learnt” which summarizes twelve “lessons” learnt during the pandemic. Along with the relevant role played by “collaboration and co-ordination” in crisis management, another key factor is the importance of “focusing on humanity”.

Continuous lockdowns and compulsory isolation had such an impact on everyone’s daily life that, in order to tackle the health emergency, tourism businesses made themselves available to people, as in the case of IFEMA in Madrid, which turned its exhibition halls into field hospitals.

The report “Lessons Learnt” presents therefore the following guidelines to include in future strategies of crisis management focused on “humanity”:

• Predefine emergency locations and roles of staff.
• Anticipate the responses to the crisis with flexibility and quick thinking.
• Involve all the stakeholders and players needed to support the system and meet people’s needs.
• Facilitate inter-state movements and repatriations through early coordination among governments.

The necessity of a human-centric approach has also emerged in relations between tourism players and customers, especially once the Travel & Tourism sector understood the importance of communicating directly with tourists, in order to meet the need for transparency, flexibility and trust.

At Twissen we observed how, with the pandemic, the concept “tourism is all about people” has become increasingly fundamental, so that a human-centric approach is the key to manage potential future crises more effectively.

Download the full WTTC report here.

Twissen