Natalia Bayona
Executive Director of UN Tourism
Manuel Paillole
She lets it slip that was called Mafalda at home when she was a child. And I agree. Not because Natalia Bayona was born in Bucaramanga, Argentina, but because the executive director of UN Tourism is a constant source of ideas aimed at developing sustainable tourism for all.
Can it be said that 2024 has been the best year for tourism since the pandemic?
Sure. I agree 100%. And there are many points to take into account. Tourism is always based on two pillars: security and trust. If these two conditions are not present, it is very difficult to talk about sustainable and sustained tourism. So, despite the fact that there is geopolitical tension, that the United Nations has recognized more than 56 conflicts around the world, the figures show us that there is a growth in tourism, based on security.
Furthermore, when we look at the figures for multi-sector foreign direct investment, we see that investment in goods is falling, but investment in services is rising. And tourism is the first sector of the service economy. This means that infrastructure funds, investment funds, governments, all those who are part of the investment ecosystem in the world, are already seeing tourism as a way to economically develop countries. And seeing how foreign investment is fluctuating is a first symptom of confidence.
Where is this investment going and where is it coming from?
The big players in private foreign investment in tourism are, in order, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and also China and Germany.
As for the recipients of investment, Latin America has several components in its favor. The first is that, as a region, it has a 0% probability of falling into a conflict between governments. That makes for security. And I will give you another piece of information: according to the Financial Times ranking, in Latin America, Mexico is the main country that receives private investment in tourism. The second is Colombia. And that is based on the fact that, for many years, there have been State policies that help this growth.
What about the Middle East?
Undoubtedly, it is also synonymous with growth. There, there has been very strong public investment, including through sovereign wealth funds, as in the cases of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. All of them, without exception, have earmarked a line item for investment in tourism. And there are these mega tourism infrastructure projects that have allowed very important advances.
And China?
China has established itself as a major investor. Above all, obviously, in its neighbors in Southeast Asia, in countries like Indonesia or Malaysia, in emerging countries. And this is the first leg of tourism development. In general, investment will continue to be one of the strategic pillars of this sector, and it will continue to grow this coming year.
Number of travelers is completely recovered?
We are also doing very well. We have recovered 98%, if we compare the figures with those of 2019. And there are already regions that have surpassed that growth, such as the Middle East, where high-impact events like the World Cup or the Expo have helped them to be the fastest growing countries. In particular, Qatar has been the country that has grown the most, also due to investments by Qatar Airways to open new frequencies.
Saudi Arabia is also undergoing a major transformation due to this public commitment to tourism as part of its economic diversification. Behind come Albania, which is growing at more than 40%, supported by a plan to show that it is synonymous with youth and entrepreneurship; El Salvador, which is basing its 37% growth on its transformation and security; and completes the Top 5 my dear Colombia, which also has in its favor the increase in new air frequencies, such as those launched by Emirates.
The latest UN Tourism Barometer speaks of overcrowding as one of the major problems of tourism. How can we strike a balance?
We must try to ensure that the authentic, high-quality local products are preserved over those that simply have a massive component and little added value. Mature markets can serve as examples, but it will not always and not everywhere be possible to adopt certain best practices regarding, for example, the regulation of short rents. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, no.
That is the question, how do you make everyone happy?
That is not easy. But my advice to national governments and local administrations has always been that you have to create a governance system that is strong enough and led by the public sector to listen to everybody.
What do you mean by that?
You see, tourism is made up of many sub-sectors, perhaps positively affecting 100 sub-sectors of the economy, and you have to listen to everybody: the academics, the researchers, the private sector, the travel agencies, the tour operators, the hoteliers, the investors. Obviously, civil society must be listened to. There must always be a representative of the civil society, of the residents, who are often not represented. And obviously the national government and the local government have to be there. In each case different things will be needed: education, regulation, formalizing the economy. Each country, each territory is different and must make its own decisions, which will not be easy, but it will have to make them.
For example, New York may decide that it does not need short term rentals and ban them because it is already a mature destination. Barcelona is a mature destination but still can’t end these short rentals and will have to regulate them until they don’t exist. And maybe in Madrid the solution is to limit the number of weeks that you can do these short rentals.
But if we go to other cities in Latin America, they will tell us that short rentals have to exist because they are emerging destinations, such as Medellin. And in other cases we find that short term rentals are also linked to issues of sex tourism and human trafficking. So there are two additional problems and we have to regulate with a firm hand.
That is why I say that each city, each destination, has a different way of being and different problems. So I believe that there is no exact solution, but what is clear is that we have to attack the issue quickly so that it does not become distorted and lead tourism to have a bad image. We cannot allow this to happen in a sector that has helped many countries to move forward.
To finish drawing the picture, short term rentals can be very good in rural areas, where there is not so much hotel infrastructure, and they have a much more positive effect, which is to open up certain destinations that otherwise would not be accessible.
What is clear is that there must be a balance between the wellbeing of destinations and the wellbeing of tourists for the sector to grow in a balanced and sustainable way.
We were talking about regions earlier. What does Africa still need to consolidate its position in the tourism sector?
I have Africa in my heart, I always say so. I love it because I feel at home there and because it has an absolute diversity. There are many ‘Africas’ within Africa. But to answer your question, I think the pending issue, and we are working very hard on it, is air connectivity. It is not easy to travel even within Africa, it is still very expensive. In many cases, to go from one African country to another you have to come to Europe. For example, we did a meeting in Mauritius and many ministers had to go to Europe to get down to Mauritius.
Did that highlight the needs of the continent?
We are getting more and more involvement from the tourism ministers of these countries. In fact, this coming year we are going to have a forum on air connectivity in Africa. That is the basis for tourism to advance in this continent, where it is true that countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco and some others are very well connected. But there are many others that are still not.
Let me tell you a curious fact. Spain has become one of the main investors in the hotel industry in Africa; we have Meliá, Riu, Palladium… That’s great. But if I am living in Spain and I want to go to many African countries, I have to go through London, Paris or Frankfurt. And this makes the trip longer and more expensive. That is why we need much more air connectivity so that many more people can get to know the beauty of these countries.
I suppose it is also important to train the workers.
We are helping tourism academies in Zambia, in Zimbabwe, in many countries, to organize courses and we already have a scholarship program for Africa. This collaboration with African academies has not happened until now, but it is absolutely necessary for the human capital to be well trained. A human capital that must be super-qualified if we want quality tourism in Africa.
That focus on education is something very recent, isn’t it?
Well, actually yes and no. UN Tourism was founded almost 50 years ago as the World Tourism Organization and not long after that the Themis Foundation was created to strengthen tourism education, although it is true that it is only six years ago that education began to be at the heart of UN Tourism.
It was then that we made a first analysis and found that 80% of the education curriculum was only focused on hospitality. But tourism is also diplomacy, international relations, entrepreneurship, travel agencies, tourism management, urban planning, public policy… And I’m just mentioning a few. It is such a holistic subject that it became our priority as UN Tourism.
But we are not a university. There are great universities in the world that can help us diversify the strategy of tourism in education. And that’s why we started to create partnerships that didn’t exist with the best universities in the world. In tourism there was no proactive strategy with tourism education, much less with training.
The first thing we did was to knock on the doors of the best universities in the world. Because under no circumstances do we want to compete or start creating programs. What we want is to diversify and support our member states so that education migrates to another level. This is how the Online Academy in Tourism was born 6 years ago, a platform with the best content from the best universities in the world, so that people from all over the world can access quality content in education, take short courses and then have a diploma from UN Tourism and these universities.
What are the results so far?
Well, we have an online academy with more than 35 universities, with courses in English, Arabic, Spanish and soon in French and Russian. We have delivered more than 2000 scholarships worldwide. And we have the support of all the best universities in tourism education.
And plans for the future?
This year we want to relaunch the platform with artificial intelligence to personalize the courses even more. That is, if I am Colombian, I can learn with a Colombian tutor; if I am Saudi, I can learn with a Saudi tutor. And technology will also help us to advance in the process of training the labor force, let’s call it technical.
So far we have talked about education, but also the ‘technical’ training of the workforce is important.
An OECD study says that 2/3 of Europeans working in tourism have only secondary education at most. With the OECD countries being the most economically mature, what can the rest expect? We realized that technical training is a worldwide challenge that needs specific work that only the United States and China have done.
Therefore, the Online Academy will have a vocational section. With the cab drivers of Cartagena de Indias we have already piloted a tourist host program to strengthen their communication skills, because they are often the first ambassadors of the destination. We also launched a similar program with Bahrain for tour guides. And now we decided to go further and in 2025 we will launch vocational programs through Whatsapp.
Tell me more.
These programs will be capsules to which you will spend only 15 minutes a day. They are perfect for cab drivers, hoteliers, housekeepers… people who are already working but need to improve their skills. With those courses, through Whatsapp, they will have a tutor with artificial intelligence and videos. And they will be able to pass a daily test. When they finish all the capsules they will have their diploma from a university. We are going to start doing this in Spain with Mahou and in Chile with the Chilean hotel and catering association.
What about young people, have you also launched programs for them?
It is true that young people do not see tourism as a long-term sector if they do not go on to higher education. That’s why we have a program to make tourism part of the secondary education curriculum. It is already being implemented in Croatia, Jamaica, Colombia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. We are working to make tourism a subject in the last two years of high school.
All this cannot be achieved without investment. Are the investment guides you have made so far useful?
We have already made at least seven investment guides in Latin America and we also have to consolidate an investment culture with Africa. Now in January we are going to Morocco to launch its investment guide. And we are doing all this work on investment incentives with Zambia, Tanzania, Algeria, with Indonesia in Asia Pacific.
We are working a lot with the countries to help them innovate in incentives. And not only in tax issues, but also in others that help to bring new technologies or capital that do not go exclusively to hotel infrastructure, but also to other developments.
For example, if I want you to build a hotel in my city or in a rural environment, taking into account that it may take a few years to build it, I can guarantee that after a certain number of jobs I will have trained my people to be ready when the hotel opens. You will not have to import labor and that will attract more investors.
In any case, before knocking on the door of a private company, we make an analysis of the values of that company and its link with tourism. But we also have more than 500 companies among our affiliated members. So we can work as a team and strengthen public-private alliances.
Is it impossible to talk about tourism without the private sector?
Tourism is a sector of the economy. Therefore, we depend 100% on the development of the private sector and, therefore, we need to digitize tourism SMEs. I give you the case of Mastercard: if you do not have new technologies applied to the tourism sector, you will not be able to move forward. We cannot generate business, but we can help them generate benefits for the sector. That is our raison d’être.
