On July 31, the Gastronomic Hotel Business Federation of the Argentinian Republic (FEHGRA) hosted the seminar Sustainability: great differentiator of tourism destinations, in which they had the collaboration of Aurora Pedro Bueno, director of the Interuniversity Chair of New Green Transition at the University of Valencia. From FEHGRA they recognized the importance of continuing to work on these issues, despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. The conference given by Professor Pedro stressed the need to work on certain tools for the sustainable development of the Argentinian hotel and gastronomic sector, emphasizing the constant challenges and decision-making that the tourism sector faces, as one of the most affected due to the health-economic crisis that we are going through worldwide.
With an audience of around 200 hotel and gastronomic entrepreneurs from Argentina, Aurora Pedro, discussed the green transition in tourism and the importance of all parties getting involved to achieve the great changes that we need, and want, to face the Covid-19 crisis and the consequent overflow of the tourism sector generated by the displacement caused by the activity and the interaction that is generated between travelers and residents.
Tourism is the most affected sector by the fact that this pandemic is transmitted by its basic activity: human displacement. Aurora Pedro commented on the fall of between 60% and 80% in the numbers of international tourists in 2020, according to OMT data and highlighted that Spain will lose two-thirds of income generated by tourism, after setting new consecutive years of records in terms of tourism, which leads Spain to question to what extent it is convenient for us to continue depending on tourism in such a high economic percentage because there are destinations that cannot live without tourism, but they need a new rethinking of their economic activity to face future global challenges for which, in the first place, it will be necessary to change the form of energy production, consumption and production. According to Pedro, for now, we cannot know how tourism will be, or how it will recover in the coming years, but specialists are clear that the ecological and digital transition will be essential to move forward.