National and Integral Tourism Plan - Turespaña Vision Destino Espaa/Nation… · Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo 2012-2015 5 Foreword Spain is the world’s leading tourism country

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National and Integral Tourism Plan

(Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo: PNIT)

2012-2015

Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo 2012-2015

5

Foreword

Spain is the world’s leading tourism country. We rank first as a holiday destination,

second in tourism expenditure and fourth in the number of tourists. Tourism accounts for

over 10% of Spain’s GDP, creates 11% of the country’s jobs and helps to offset its trade

deficit. Tourism is a crucial asset for the creation of wealth and employment, acting as a

driving force even in times of downturn, and it also has a huge knock-on effect in other

productive sectors.

The Government considers tourism to be one of the main strategic thrusts for the

economic upturn in its 2012-2015 agenda. Right from the start of the legislature we have

advocated a tourism policy that helps the sector to be more competitive, more innovative

and sustainable, cementing its world leadership in the medium and long term.

After five months of work we have agreed on this National and Integral Tourism Plan

(Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo: PNIT) with all public and private stakeholders,

doing so in a climate of dialogue and collaboration. It is a roadmap with groundbreaking

solutions for the various challenges faced by the tourism industry.

We are working with a four-year strategy. We now stand in need, more than ever, of the

commitment of government authorities at all levels, tourism companies, workers and all

other stakeholders to reach the objectives they have all helped to set. It is the

responsibility of each and every one of us to see this through. Thank you for your inputs

and future contributions to the objectives of this Plan. I am convinced that the response

will be overwhelmingly positive and we will all pull together to strengthen and consolidate

one of our country’s most clearly competitive sectors. We can hardly afford to turn our

backs on such an economic boon in these difficult but clearly surmountable times.

José Manuel Soria López

Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (Ministro de Industria, Energía y Turismo)


6

The State Secretariat for Tourism (Secretaría de Estado de

Turismo) would like to express its gratitude for the nearly two

hundred inputs received from public, private and social

stakeholders on the various forums where this Plan and its

intentions have been presented.

These contributions and concerns have all been conducive to a

more fruitful reflection process and most of them have been

recorded in this PNIT. We are delighted to be working in line

with the needs expressed by the sector itself.


7

Contents

Presentation ...................................................................................................................... 5

Initials and abbreviations ............................................................................................... 11

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 13

Introduction to the PNIT ................................................................................................. 15

Structure of the PNIT ...................................................................................................... 18

Taking Stock ............................................................................................................ 21

Overview of the tourism sector ..................................................................................... 23

Diagnosis ........................................................................................................................ 25

Opportunities and threats .............................................................................................. 26

Strengths and weaknesses ........................................................................................... 28

Strength of the Spain brand ...................................................................................... 29

Focus on clients (demand) ....................................................................................... 30

Supply-side and destinations .................................................................................... 32

Alignment of public-private stakeholders .................................................................. 33

Knowledge ............................................................................................................... 34

Talent and entrepreneurship .................................................................................... 35

Destination Spain: Vision and Objectives ............................................................. 37

Destination Spain: Vision ............................................................................................... 39

Objetives of Desination Spain ....................................................................................... 40

Measures .................................................................................................................. 53

Strength of the Spain brand ........................................................................................... 57

Coordinated development of the Spain brand ................................................................ 57

Promotion of the Strategic Marketing Plan (Plan Estratégico de Marketing) ................. 58

Permanent EU representation of Spain's tourism interests ........................................... 60

Focus on clients ............................................................................................................. 61

Launching of the programme “Fidelización España” (Customer loyalty programme) .... 61

Promoting a campaign to stimulate national tourism demand ........................................ 62

Modulation of airport fees .............................................................................................. 64


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Streamlining the tourism visa process ........................................................................... 65

Supply-side and destinations ........................................................................................ 68

Support for the repositioning of mature destinations ...................................................... 68

Credit facilities for renewing tourism infrastructure ........................................................ 70

Support for Tourism Municipalities................................................................................. 71

Smart destinations: innovation in destination management ........................................... 72

Networks of customer experience management agencies ( agencias de gestión de

experiencias) ................................................................................................................. 74

Standardisation of the rating and categorisation of hotels, rural accommodation and

campsites ...................................................................................................................... 76

Evolution of the Spanish Tourism Quality System (Sistema de Calidad Turístico

Español) ....................................................................................................................... 77

Bringing out the importance of Spain's cultural and natural heritage, wine and cuisine .. 79

Encouragement of eco-friendly, sustainable tourism ..................................................... 83

Alignment of public and private stakeholders .............................................................. 85

Analysis of the impact of all proposed legislation on the tourism sector ........................ 85

Promoting market unity .................................................................................................. 85

Amendment of tourism-affecting legislation ................................................................... 87

A.- Labour market reform ......................................................................................... 87

B.- Amendment of the Coastal Law (Ley de Costas) ................................................ 88

C.- Amendment of the Intellectual Property Law (Ley de Propiedad Intelectual) ....... 90

D.- Amendment of the Urban Leasehold Law (Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos) ..... 90

E.- Amendment of the Water Law (Ley de Aguas) .................................................... 91

Bringing the private sector into Turespaña’s decision-making and financing processes 92

Support for the internationalisation of Spain's tourism firms ........................................... 92

Single window for groundbreaking entrepreneurs and firms .......................................... 93

Knowledge ...................................................................................................................... 95

Drawing up the Turespaña Services Catalogue ............................................................. 95

Reorganisation and modernisation of the Spanish Diplomatic-Mission Tourism

Departments Abroad (Consejerías de Turismo de España en el Exterior) ..................... 96

Reorientation of national tourism statistics ..................................................................... 97

Talent and entrepreneurship ....................................................................................... 100

Credit facilities for young tourism entrepreneurs .......................................................... 100

Programme of innovating tourism entrepreneurs ......................................................... 100

Bringing training and research procedures into line with business demand ................. 101


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Prioritisation of measures .................................................................................... 103

Prioritisation methodology .......................................................................................... 105

Measure prioritisation criteria ....................................................................................... 105

Ease of implementation: ......................................................................................... 105

The impact of the measure: .................................................................................... 106

The prioritisation matrix ............................................................................................... 107

Assessment of the measures ...................................................................................... 108

The prioritisation matrix ............................................................................................... 110

Monitoring and Control ......................................................................................... 113

Coordination instruments ............................................................................................ 115

Monitoring and control ................................................................................................. 117

Annex ..................................................................................................................... 119

PNIT inputs.................................................................................................................... 121


11

Initials and Abbreviations

AGE: Administración General del Estado (Central Government)

AENA: Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (Spanish Airports and Air

Navigation Authority)

CEHAT: Confederación Española de Hoteles y Alojamientos Turísticos

(Spanish Hotel and Tourism Accommodation Confederation)

CEOE: Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales (Spanish

Business Organisation Confederation)

CNAE: Clasificación Nacional de Actividades Económicas (National

Classification of Economic Activities)

CONESTUR: Consejo Español de Turismo (Spanish Tourism Board)

EE.LL: Entidades locales (Local authorities)

ENISA: Empresa Nacional de Innovación, S.A.

FECOHT-CCOO: Federación de Comercio, Hostelería y Turismo de Comisiones Obreras

(Federation of Commerce, Hotel Trade and Tourism of the Trade-

Union Comisiones Obreras)

FEMP: Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias (Spanish Federation

of Municipalities and Provinces)

FOMIT: Fondo financiero del Estado para la Modernización de las

Infraestructuras Turísticas (State Fund for the Modernisation of

Tourism Infrastructure)

ICEX: Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior (Spanish Overseas Trade

Institute)

ICO: Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Official Credit Institute)

ICT: Information and Communication Technologies

IET: Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (Tourism Studies Institute)

INE: Instituto Nacional de Estadística (National Statistics Institute)

LAU: Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (Urban Leasehold Law)

MAEC: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación (Ministry of Overseas

Affairs and Cooperation)

Plan Nacional e integral de Turismo 2012-2015

12

MAGRAMA: Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente (Ministry of

Agriculture, Food and the Environment)

MICE: Meetings, Incentives, Congresses and Exhibitions

OET: Oficinas Españolas de Turismo (Spanish Tourism Offices)

SCTE: Sistema de Calidad Turístico Español (Spanish Tourism Quality

System)

SEGITTUR: Sociedad Estatal para la Gestión de la Innovación y las Tecnologías

Turísticas (State Corporation for the Management and Innovation of

Tourism Technologies)

SICTED: Sistema Integral de Calidad Turística en Destinos (Integral System of

Destination Tourism Quality)

TURESPAÑA: Instituto de Turismo de España (Spanish Tourism Institute)

WTO: World Tourism Organisation

INTRODUCTION

MINISTERIO DE INDUSTRIA, ENERGÍA

Y TURISMO

SECRETARÍA DE ESTADO DE

TURISMO


Introduction to the PNIT

15


Spain is the world’s leading tourism country. It ranks second in tourism revenue and

fourth in the number of international tourists1. Tourism is crucial for Spain’s economy,

accounting as it does for over 10.2% of the GDP2, providing 11.39% of the country’s

jobs3 and offsetting the lopsidedness of Spain’s trade balance. In the current juncture the

strategic sectors of Spain’s economy should act as levers to raise the country back onto

the path of growth and create employment. Tourism should be one of the top-priority bids

among these most dynamic sectors, as one of the most across-the-board activities and

the strongest driving force, and also because of its orientation towards the markets

showing budding signs of recovery.

It is no less true, however, that Spain’s tourism activity has lost much of its

competitiveness 4 in recent years, raising doubts and qualms about our model’s social,

environmental and economic sustainability in the future. All the signs are that a 50-year

economic cycle is now approaching its end; the new world tourism leaders are now

basing their success on innovation. It is therefore essential to take on measures that act

as a turning point, nipping this decline in the bud and kindling growth underpinned by

solid bases to ensure the future leadership and competitiveness of Spain’s model.

The national government, mindful of the sheer importance of tourism for Spain, is keen to

drive the Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo (PNIT) through the Secretaría de Estado

de Turismo as a set of measures for the period 2012–2015, to boost the competitiveness

of tourism firms and Spain’s destinations, renew Spain’s world leadership for the coming

decades and contribute towards the generation of Spain’s wealth, employment and well-

being.

Under these circumstances the PNIT is conceived as a response to the main needs

expressed by the tourism sector, stressing the following fundamental aspects:

1 World Tourism Organisation , WTO.

2 Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE, Cuenta Satélite de Turismo (Tourism Satellite Account), advanced figures

for 2010. 3 Instituto de Estudios Turísticos, Afiliación a la Seguridad Social (Social Security Registration), 2011 (activities

bearing the closest relationship to tourism). 4 It has dropped from 5

th to 8

th in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum,

WEF, 2009 and 2011.


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Strategic but operational approach

The PNIT defines the keynote ideas for

boosting the tourism sector’s

competitivesness from the operational point

of view, transforming the strategies into

specific actions and measures.

Leadership of the national government to team up stakeholders and resources in

a common endeavour.

Public-private collaboration assuring alignment both in policy design and in

decision-taking and the financing of tourism promotion.

Design of across-the-board policies for decision-taking purposes and the

establishment of strategies, taking in all the organisations of the central

government (Administración General del Estado: AGE), and the various

government levels (Europe, National, Regional and Local).

Establishment of an institutional structure and framework to boost the

competitiveness of tourism companies, stressing the building of a single market

and favouring the harmonisation of legislation throughout the whole national

territory.

In destination Spain it is essential for all stakeholders to sing from the same

songsheet, pursuing an innovative vision in policy design: Spain as a tourist-

centred destination.

On the basis of the above aspects and in the current economic circumstances, the PNIT

has been designed with the following characteristic features:

Integral

Its integral character takes in nearly all

aspects across the board (political, social,

economic, cultural…), as befits a campaign

to lay down the bases for a change of cycle.

National

The plan puts forward a vision to make this

nation stand out from the rest. It aims to

ensure that “Destination Spain”, country

brand to the fore, can more than hold its

own in terms of attracting tourists and

proposing tourism services.


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Transparent

Transparent execution of the measures through

public feedback on progress.

Coordinated, controlled and measurable

The Plan defines coordination, control and

monitoring mechanisms. Indicators will be

established to gauge progress in implementing

the measures and achieving Plan aims.

Plan Horizonte 2020

Strategic Marketing Plan

Integral Spanish Tourism Quality Plan

C21st Coastal Plan

Based on previous plans

The PNIT sets out to build on previous plans

whilst also tackling the necessary

tranformations for dealing with a change of

cycle and a global downturn.


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Structure of the PNIT

This Plan has been designed on the basis of the following methodology:

1. Analysis of the sector’s current situation and diagnosis of the main problems that

might be to blame for this situation.

o Dynamic of the change of cycle currently being experienced by the sector,

due mainly to the demographic and technological changes of recent

years.

o Diagnosis to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, threats and

opportunities of Destination Spain.

2. Once the current situation has been established, a definition is then made of the

desired future situation or vision for the Spanish tourism sector in the mid term.

3. In pursuit of this desired situation and on the basis of the above diagnosis,

specific objectives are then set for working towards this defined future vision for

the tourism sector. These objectives are accompanied by a set of monitoring

indicators to ascertain the progress made in reaching this defined vision.

Measure N 1970-1987 1955-1969 … Measure 2

…

PNIT DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY

Destination Spain

MAIN THRUSTS

Strength of the Spain brand

Focus on

clients

Supply-side and

destinations

Alignment of public-private stakeholders

Knowledge Talent and

entrepreneurship

CURRENT SITUATION

(TAKING STOCK)

Objective 1

Objective 2 Objective 3

Objective N Measure 1


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4. As a conclusion of all the above analysis, a package of innovation-based,

government-led measures is defined to support achievement of the objectives set

from each one of the pivotal thrusts of Destination Spain.

5. The next step is the prioritisation of measures. To this end a prioritisation

methodology has been drawn up, on the basis of their ease of implementation

and sector impact.

6. Lastly, it is essential to identify the coordination instruments between all

stakeholders to ensure proper liaison throughout the whole project.

TAKING STOCK


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Taking Stock

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Overview of the tourism sector

Since 2008 there has been a worldwide seachange in the economic situation, affecting

all activity sectors and tourism in particular.

This new scenario coincides in time with a long term change of cycle5 affecting the

tourism sector for the first time ever, sapping the sector’s vitality and reflecting a

watershed moment in its history.

The tourism sector, indeed, has passed through various stages since its beginnings, as

shown in the figure below:

5 M. Butler. ”La competitividad en el turismo español”. FAES 2011

1988-2009 2010- …

Spring

Growth

Summer

Prosperity

Autumn

Recession

Winter

Depression

(*) Fuente: M. Butler. FAES

2011.

First tour operators

Civil aviation main means of transport

Birth of charter companies

Expansion of the main worldwide outbound markets

High sector profitability in line with the economic welfare boom

Deregulation of associated sectors.

Internet. Price-based competition. New competing

destinations Business concentration

Problems of mass tourism

Low inflation rates

Exhausted market potential: fall in prices

Decline of old technologies

Unemployment


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The characteristic traits of the tourism sector’s current stage are:

Demographic change in European societies, the baby boom generation soon

reaching retirement age (as from 2015).

Fall in Western Europe’s demand due to declining economic activity and the

concomitant income reduction of 80% of the tourists coming to Spain.

Supply glut as demand shrinks, the fierce competition then forcing the least

efficient and profitable companies to the wall.

Breakage of the value chain in which the tourist takes centre stage in the tourism

business; the sector now has to exploit this change by thinking up new marketing

management disciplines.

All this calls for a rethink of the whole tourism sector on the basis of tourist-centred

innovation. This implies new models of business management; new forms of

communication; the search for client well-being in the widest sense, paying special

attention to health and the relation with the environment.

Any tourism destinations that fail to take this new situation into account and adapt

themselves to it are bound to steadily lose ground in the market.


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Diagnosis

The diagnosis made in this Plan of the current situation of Spain’s tourism sector does

not set out to be exhaustive. Rather does it fall within the remit of the Secretaría de

Estado de Turismo, whose responsibility it is to favour coordination between the different

government levels, establish the framework that enables companies to improve their

competitiveness, providing value-added services to drive private initiative and promoting

destination Spain among international markets.

The PNIT also addresses the top-priority tourism issues affecting the Spanish tourism

sector and paving the way for the change of cycle ahead.

The approach is based on the idea of Spain as a competing destination with other

nations, so its whole strategy and all its resources need to be lined up in a common

endeavour to ensure that it stands out from the rest.

In the diagnosis, drawing from various sources6, the following aspects are analysed:

The opportunities and threats that might affect both Destination Spain and other

competing countries.

The strengths and weaknesses of Destination Spain in terms of its competition

with other nations: resources and strategies.

6 As well as the explicitly quoted sources, consideration has also been given to plan analysis

statements and reports drawn up earlier by Turespaña.


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Opportunities and threats

Analysis of the main trends and developments in international tourism in recent years

brings out an appreciable change in the model of the tourism sector.

Tourists are steadily becoming more choosy and critical, using internet and social

networking sites to glean a huge amount of information and opinions on tourism

destinations, greatly increasing their decision-making powers.

In this context the tourism sector can no longer afford to base its competitive edge on

easily replicated attributes. This strategy would eventually boil down inter-country

competition to price alone.

In this scenario certain threats and opportunities stand out for Spain’s tourism sector:

Threats: these involve factors that are external to the country and affect it adversely.

The worsening economic downturn in Europe: although this situation

affects all productive sectors, the special dependence of Spain’s tourism

sector on traditional outbound countries tends to multiply its impact. The

growth forecasts for Spain’s main markets in 2012 are 0.7% in Germany,

0.5% in the UK and France and a fall of 1.4% in Italy. (European Commission,

2012)

Threat of destinations from the Mediterranean Arc: based on price-

competitive seaside tourism. An 8% increase in international tourist arrivals to

North Africa is forecast for 2012. (WTO, 2012)

High seasonality due to the common holiday periods: many outbound

countries tend to take their main holidays on the same dates (Easter,

Christmas, summer holidays…).

Improvement of developing countries’ country brand: quite apart from

Spain’s natural competitors, the improvement in the economic and social

development of many countries has raised the level of their country brand and

attraction as a tourism destination.


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Opportunities: these are country-external factors that could affect it positively:

Emerging outbound tourism markets, not only those close to destinations on

the Mediterranean arc but also the countries of Eastern Europe and

elsewhere. In 2011, for example, China increased its tourism expenditure by

32%, Russia by 22% and Brazil by 30%. (WTO, 2012).

Population ageing in Spain’s main outbound countries, increasing potential

demand for health and wellness tourism.

The demand for eco-friendly tourism is growing among international tourists.

Existence of a wide range of intermediaries ready to promote products with a

distinctive, standout feel in markets looking for new experiences.

In the categories of urban, cultural, internal tourism, MICE7, enogastronomic

tourism and others, the main purchasing-decision factors are more bound up

with product attributes than price.

Talent from other sectors: tourism is a highly transverse activity; this opens

up the possibility of phasing in talent from other sectors to meet tourism’s

growing needs (e.g. information and communication technologies – ICTs- the

environment, health, design, agrofood, infrastructure, etc.)

Tourism as a strategic sector in the European Union: tourism features

prominently in both the Treaty of Lisbon and the “Madrid Declaration” 8

intended to promote tourism as one of the top-priority sectors with specific

growth and consolidation strategies, as reflected in the EU’s budget

framework 2014-2020. Inclusion of tourism as a specific objective in the

Programme for the Competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs (COSME).

7 Meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions

8 “Europe, the world's No 1 tourist destination – a new political framework for tourism in

Europe”


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Strengths and Weaknesses

The strengths and weaknesses associated with Destination Spain are categorised in

terms of the pivotal resource- and strategy-factors:

Strength of the Spain brand: coordinated promotion of the Spain brand.

Focus on clients: demand management.

Supply-side and Destinations: product management.


Knowledge: management and sharing of tourism knowledge.

Talent and entrepreneurship: suitable training and entrepreneurship.

Talent and

Entrepreneurship

Strength

of the

Spain Brand

Focus on

clients

Supply-side

and

destinations Public-Private

Alignment

Knowledg

Destination

Spain


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An analysis is given below of the current situation of each one of these pivotal factors:


The Spain brand, and especially the tourism brand, is a key asset in the economy,

calling for efficient management coordinated with all stakeholders to help build it up

(public authorities, private sector and civil society).

Strengths:

Among the components making up the country brand according to the Country

Brand Index (quality of life, value system, inheritance and culture …) features

the tourism attribute, where Spain ranked third worldwide in 2011.

Widespread renown of Spain’s tourism brand in countries where Spain is the

leading tourism destination (MPG, 2011):

Country Ranking of Spain as chosen tourism

destination

Renown of Spain’s tourism brand

9

United

Kingdom

1st 50.5%

Germany 1st 40.2%

France 1st 38.5%

Holland 1st 35.2%

Weaknesses:

In recent years Spain has been sliding down the world rankings. In the ranking

reports drawn up by Future Brand, Spain, in the last 3 years has come 10th

(2009), 14th (2010) and 14th (2011). (Future Brand).

Weak commitment of Spain’s entrepreneurship to construction of the Spain

brand.

9 Percentage of respondents answering “Spain” when asked for the first tourism destination that

springs to mind when they think about a trip abroad.


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Lack of renown and low ranking of Spain’s tourism brand in the main emerging

markets (MPG, 2011):

Country Ranking of Spain as chosen

tourism destination Renown of Spain’s

tourism brand 10

Russia 5th 17.7%

Brazil 4th 18.9%

China 6th 15%

Focus on clients (demand)

This section analyses the main characteristics of the current demand for Spain as a

tourism destination and the access strategy to these markets.

Strengths:

High degree of customer loyalty in traditional European markets as reflected

by a high return rate of holiday-making clients. 83.5% of tourists that visited

Spain in 2011 had already visited the country beforehand, with an even higher

percentage being recorded by Spain’s main outbound tourism countries such

as the United Kingdom, Portugal, France and Germany, with figures of 90.3%,

90.2%, 88.5% and 88.4% respectively. (IET, 2011).

Spain’s image as a tourism destination improves upon first acquaintance; after

the first visit tourists, arriving with low expectations, tend to be pleasantly

surprised. The percentage of tourists who give a positive rating to Spain’s

infrastructure and facilities (roads, healthcare…) increases after familiarisation

from 30% to 58%, the accommodation-quality rating from 41% to 62% and

hospitality rating from 62% to 82%. (IKERFEL, 2010).

Tapping into the growth in emerging countries: in some emerging countries

the growth of tourism expenditure in Spain is higher than the overall growth

rate in that country’s outbound tourism expenditure. For example, while

Russia increased its international tourism expenditure by 22% from 2010 to

2011 (WTO, 2012), the expenditure of Russian tourists in Spain grew by

10

Percentage of respondents answering “Spain” when asked for the first tourism destination that springs to mind when they think about a trip abroad


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double this figure in 2010 (IET, 2011). Likewise, while Brazil’s international

tourism expenditure has increased by 30% (WTO, 2012), the expenditure of

Brazilian tourists in Spain grew by over 30% from 2010 to 2011. (IET, 2011).

Weaknesses:

Demand concentrated in a handful of countries, in terms of both the number of

tourists and their generated expenditure. The tourism expenditure

percentages of Spain’s main outbound tourism markets are: United Kingdom

(20%), Germany (16.4%), France (10.1%), Italy (5.6%) and the Netherlands

(4.6%). (IET, 2011). This concentration is especially heavy in seaside-resort

tourism. There has also been a significant fall in the total tourism expenditure

in Spain for some of these markets. From 2007 to 2011, the tourism

expenditure in Spain fell by 22.4% for the United Kingdom, 6% for Germany

and 6% for Italy (IET, 2011).

Low rating as a destination by tourists who have not yet visited Spain. The

lowest rated factors are the environment (23%), prices (25%), infrastructure

(30%) and accommodation quality (41%). (IKERFEL, 2010)

From their home countries tourists cannot perceive all the tourism possibilities

on offer in destination Spain. The real, distinctive features of many

destinations, what really sets them apart from the rest, are not properly

reflected in package tours. Lack of uniformity, low critical mass and the lack of

commercial organisation all hinder the packaging of these standout tourism

products.

Fees for use of airport and seaport infrastructure are often set without any

consideration for their impact on tourism and their capacity of solving the

seasonal lopsidedness of the demand and developing high-potential tourism

segments such as cruises, city visits or city-breaks.

The attributes sought by the seaside-resort target market, such as climate,

beaches and surroundings, can be easily matched by other destinations; this

tends to boil down competition to price alone.

Fall in the proportion of trips by the Spanish to national destinations in

comparison to trips by Spanish abroad, dropping from 93.4% to 91.7% from

2008 to 2011. (IET, 2011)


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Promotion and communication of the attributes of Spain’s tourism brand, as

well as the allocation of human, financial and technical resources for

promotion purposes, is not sufficiently tailored to the characteristics of each

target market.

Supply-side and Destinations

The section analyses the main characteristics of the tourism supply of destination

Spain, from the point of view of tourism resource and product.

Strengths:

Great quantity and variety of infrastructure suitable for tourism use.

World leader in seaside-resort tourism, well established and featuring strongly

in the tour operation supply, acting as a European benchmark at the service

and infrastructure level.

Great diversity and variety of resources that enrich cultural and natural

tourism: Spain ranks 2nd and 35th out of 139 countries in the study “The Travel

& Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011” in terms of cultural and natural

resources, respectively. (World Economic Forum, 2011).

Accessibility of nearly all destinations thanks to thoroughgoing development of

the transport industry and infrastructure, mainly by land and air. Good climate,

high level of law and order and first rate healthcare and assistance services.

Weaknesses:

The downward spiralling or freezing of traditional seaside-resort tourism prices

exerts a growing pressure on costs, with a knock on effect on service quality;

this eats into profits and therefore reduces ploughback investment in the

modernisation of establishments. In 2011 hotel prices fell by over 9% on 2007.

(INE, 2011)

Heavy lopsidedness of Spain’s tourism supply in favour of seaside-resort

tourism, now showing signs of flagging but still dominating over the other


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categories like urban, cultural, internal, rural, MICE, enogastronomic tourism

et al.

Heavy seasonality of seaside-resort tourism. The characteristics of this

category of tourism makes it difficult to spread the tourism activity more evenly

round the rest of the year (except in the Canary Isles), with all the concomitant

problems of sustainability.

High environmental impact of the Spanish tourism sector, Spain coming 47th

out of 139 countries in the study The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness

Report 2011 in relation to the sustainability of T&T industry development.

(World Economic Forum, 2011)

Low innovation investment in tourism firms: in companies of the hotel trade

(CNAE [National Classification of Economic Activities] 55 and 56) the

innovation rate is 0.15 as compared to 0.86 in the service sector and 1.48 in

industry. (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2010)

Failure to bring local-government financing distribution into line with the

particular traits of municipalities with a high proportion of floating population in

relation to the fixed population.

Dispersion of service standards due to the highly scattered nature of the

tourism industry and the majority proportion of SMEs.

Low integration of publicly managed culture and nature assets with the tourism

sector. These assets, which could be crucial in helping Spain’s tourism stand

out from its competitors, are not properly integrated into the distribution

outlets.


This section analyses the alignment of the public services and tourism policy with the

needs of the business sector.


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Strengths:

High convening capacity by the national government, favouring the alignment

of the whole sector.

Favourable attitude by the business sector and public at large towards

innovative initiatives and reforms.

Weaknesses:

Legislation does not lay down the best possible competitiveness framework for

developing tourism business. There is no legislation uniformity and a general

failure to assess the tourism impact when passing new laws.

Little integration between the public and private sector in decision taking and

the financing of Spain as a tourism destination.

Dispersion and scattering of organisations bidding for financing instruments,

subsidies, projects and other resources at all geographical levels.

Knowledge

This section analyses the capacity of culling and managing knowledge on the

Spanish tourism sector, from the supply- and demand-side and also in terms of

competitiveness, among other factors.

Strengths:

Availability of top-quality public and private databases and sources to be

drawn on to gain a better knowledge of the sector.

Network of Spanish tourism offices abroad (Spanish Tourism Offices: OET),

which act as antennae, furnishing knowledge and liaison with the sector in the

outbound markets.


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Weaknesses:

The knowledge supply is not structured to meet the needs of sector demand.

Tourism-knowledge generation and operation centres working with a

piecemeal vision and little input of added value.

Talent and Entrepreneurship

The last of the pivotal factors corresponds to the encouragement of innovative

management on the strength of talent and entrepreneurship. A crucial factor here is

to ensure a proper level of training and incentives, enabling the sector to work in a

more professional fashion.

Strengths:

Spain boasts a wide-ranging supply of university and occupational tourism

training. Pride of place here goes to the online university research and training

network through the University Network of Tourism Postgraduates (Red

Universitaria de Postgrados en Turismo: REDINTUR), currently comprising 19

Spanish universities that offer postgraduate, master and doctorate syllabi in

different fields of tourism.

Spain has top-ranking business schools worldwide: two business schools rank

among the first 10 and a third 33rd worldwide (Financial Times, 2012); these

are potential sources for attracting talent to the sector.

Weaknesses:

The tourism sector is not perceived as a prestigious sector to work in or do

business with. It has a long-standing association with unskilled work, low

wages and high rate of temporary employment contracts.

The training and research supply has not been properly tailored to meet the

needs of the tourism sector.

Lack of hotel and restaurant-trade training institutions with a recognised

international prestige.

DESTINATION SPAIN:

VISION AND

OBJECTIVES


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Destination Spain

39

Destination Spain: Vision

“Destination Spain has been designed to stand out from the rest, with all the

cultural, natural, business and public-service resources placed at the service of

tourists”

The vision of Destination Spain endorsed by the PNIT has the following features:

Leader destination with international projection, ensuring that the client

understands what makes Spain stand out from other countries.

Economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, generating sufficient

returns for keeping up a high added value; generating quality jobs and making a

responsible use of natural resources.

With economically profitable destinations, thereby encouraging both public and

private investment to develop Spain’s competitive model.

Leader with international projection

Environmentally, socially and economically sustainable

Excellent pool of talent (innovation)

Efficient business model with Europe as frame of reference

With profitable destinations

Collaboration between public and private sectors

Tourist

DESTINATION SPAIN: VISION

Internet savvy


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Destination Spain

40

Efficient in its business model, a worldwide benchmark in terms of management

and profitability.

An excellent talent level, as the basis for management of both destinations and

tourism firms and as seedbed for innovative entrepreneurship.

Internet savvy to maximise the benefits of information and communication

technologies as a continual transformation vector of the tourism sector.

Collaborative between the public, private sector and the other tourism social

stakeholders and organisations, for defining strategies and joint actions to

improve the value of Spain’s tourism for its clients.

Objectives for Destination Spain

In pursuit of the desired vision of Destination Spain the PNIT lays down a series of

objectives for the Spanish tourism sector, to be supported by a set of measures.

The 7 objectives making up the PNIT are:

1. Boost tourism activity and profitability.

2. Generate quality employment.

3. Encourage market unity.

4. Improve the international ranking.

5. Enhance the cohesion and renown of the Spain brand.

6. Favour public-private co-responsibility.

7. Work towards the deseasonalisation of tourism.

These objectives will be accompanied by 3 instruments:

a) Boosting knowledge, entrepreneurship and training.

b) Improve the tourism supply.

c) Diversify demand.

Indicators have been identified to gauge the degree of compliance of the defined

objectives and instruments from two perspectives:


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Destination Spain

41

From the first perspective indicators have been selected to compare Spain’s position with

Europe’s most competitive tourism countries11 (Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria,

Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Iceland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) as well as

Mediterranean countries (Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco).

From a second perspective indicators have been selected12 to gauge the development of

the internal structural aspects that define Spain’s tourism sector.

11

Selection from The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum, WEF, 2011. 12

The design of the proposed indicators has been limited to the information sources available today. Ideally, certain additional indicators should be created in the future for measuring some of the PNIT objectives with greater precision.


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Indic

ato

r

1.c Average daily expenditure of tourists

This indicator measures one of the most important results sought by the objective: the average daily expenditure associated with each international tourist that has visited Spain. The average daily expenditure gives a good working idea of this.

Sourc

e

EGATUR (Spanish Tourism Expenditure Survey). Instituto de Estudios turísticos.

Description

Annual variation in the average daily expenditure of international tourists in Spain.

Obje

ctive

1 Boost tourism activity and profitability

Description

Boost sector activity by increasing revenue and associated profitability. The aim of this objective is to stress the PNIT’s proposal of increasing the expenditure of each international tourist and the margin or profitability associated with tourism-related revenue

Indic

ato

r

1.a Total tourism revenue

This indicator aims to measure the trend of tourism revenue as an entry in the balance of payments.

Sourc

e

Balance of payments. Bank of Spain (BE in Spanish initials).

Descrip

tio

n

Trend of tourism revenue as an entry in the balance of payments

Indic

ato

r

1.b Gross Operating Surplus (GOS) per employee

The surplus generated by operating activities after the labour factor input has been recompensed, divided between the total occupied employees of the sector. This indicator aims to compare this surplus per employee in Spain against its main competitors, as a measurement of profitability and productivity.

Sourc

e

Structural Business Statistics Eurostat.

Description

Difference between the GOS per employee of Europe and Spain’s main competitors.


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Obje

ctive

2 Generating quality jobs

Description

Increase the sector’s remunerative level and its stability over time. These factors, as variables for studying employment quality, have to be compared with the average figure for all sectors in Spain.

Indic

ato

r

2.a Mean hourly wage

This indicator assesses the remunerative level of people employed in the tourism sector as compared to all sectors as a whole.

Sourc

e

Encuesta Trimestral de Coste Laboral (Quarterly Labour Cost Survey) Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE).

Description

Trend in the difference between the average hourly wage of characteristic tourism activities and the average for all sectors as a whole. The characteristic tourism activities are defined by the Word Tourism Organisation in its recommendations for drawing up the Tourism Satellite Account

Indic

ato

r

2.b Temporary employment contracts against open-ended contracts

This indicator makes it possible to compare the tourism sector’s labour stability with the total figure for sectors as a whole. Its trend gauges how far employment stability is being achieved for tourism employees.

Sourc

e

Labour Force Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa: EPA. ) Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE).

Description

Trend in the difference between the percentage of temporary contracts in characteristic tourism activities as compared with sectors as a whole.


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Obje

ctive

3 Encourage market unity

Description

Develop a common legislative framework that facilitates and stimulates the development of tourism in Spain. The aim here is to harmonise the wide-ranging legislation existing at the various government levels (state, regional and local).

Indic

ato

r

3.a Transparency of government policies

The aim of gauging the transparency of government policies is to assess ease of access to the relevant information. Greater legislative simplicity can thus be measured by the ease with which the public can access and compare this information.

Sourc

e

Executive Opinion Survey 2009, 2010 World Economic Forum

Description

Spain’s position in terms of a survey-based assessment of the ease of accessing information on changes in government policies and legislation.


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Obje

ctive

4 Improve the international position

Description

Increase the weight of Spain’s interests in international decision-taking, based on two mainstays:

Increasing tourism-related companies’ internationalisation capacity: tourism firms and sector suppliers.

Establishing a representation of Spain’s tourism sector interests in supranational decision-taking spheres.

Indic

ato

r

4.a Trend in the number of subsidiaries and revenue

Study of the progression in the number of subsidiaries of firms in the hotel trade (CNAE-09 55 and 56) abroad and their revenue as an indicator of the internationalisation capacity of tourism firms.

Sourc

e Survey of the overseas subsidiaries of

Spanish firms (Estadística de Filiales de Empresas Españolas en el Exterior). Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). D

escription

Indicator showing the number of subsidiaries or branches of Spanish hotel trade firms trading abroad and their revenue volume.

Indic

ato

r

4.b Variation in the investments received by Spain from European funds

Indicator designed to assess Spain’s participation in European initiatives on the basis of the trend of funds captured for financing tourism-related measures.

Sourc

e

Proposal for drawing up the indicator (Propuesta de elaboración) Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

European funds received by Spain for tourism investments.


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Obje

ctive

5 Improve the cohesion and renown of the Spain brand

Description

Improve the ranking of Spain brand in long-standing markets and increase its renown in newer markets, acting in a coordinated and cohesive fashion among all brand-building stakeholders.

Indic

ato

r

5.a Spain’s position in the country brand ranking

The position of Spain brand in the annual study conducted by FutureBrand on the renown of the Spain brand (based on tourist-perception of 5 variables: tourism, inheritance and culture, business aptitude, quality of life and value system).

Sourc

e

FutureBrand. D

escription

Indicator drawn up annually by FutureBrand to analyse and classify the country brand in a total of 110 countries.

Indic

ato

r

5.b Spain’s position in the tourism-related country brand ranking

Spain’s position in this ranking is limited to Spain’s renown from a tourism point of view (comprising six attributes: attractions, hotels and resorts, cuisine, conviviality, shopping and nightlife).

Sourc

e

FutureBrand.

Description

Specific component of the tourism attribute within the indicator drawn up annually by FutureBrand, which analyses and classifies the country brand of a total of 110 countries.

Indic

ato

r

5.c Trend in the ranking of Spain’s tourism brand

This indicator shows the trend in the position of Spain’s tourism brand in its long-standing markets and renown in newer markets.

Sourc

e

MPG. Brand tracking.

Description

Variation in the percentage renown of Spain’s tourism brand in its long-standing markets and newer markets.


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Obje

ctive

6 Favour public-private co-responsibility

Description

Encourage participation and collaboration between the public and private sector in all fields of tourism management. Two lines of co-responsibility can be distinguished within this objective:

Private participation in tourism-policy decision-taking. Financing of joint tourism promotion actions or services.

Indic

ato

r

6.a Degree of participation by private initiative in decision-taking procedures

Trend in the degree of participation by private initiative in the decision-taking procedures of tourism-promotion organisations.

Sourc

e

Proposal for drawing up the indicator (Propuesta de elaboración). Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Percentage of participation by the private sector in tourism-related decision-taking bodies.

Indic

ato

r

6.b Index of private financing of promotion activities

This index assesses the trend in the level of private financing of national tourism promotion initiatives as a key indicator of public-private collaboration.

Sourc

e

Proposal for drawing up the indicator (Propuesta de elaboración). Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Index of private financing (as a percentage of total financing) of tourism promotion activities launched by the public authority.


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Indic

ato

r

7.b Duration of the mid-high season of tourism of the Spanish

Indicator showing the duration of the mid season of national tourism of the Spanish, understanding this to be the season concentrating at least 80% of total national tourism expenditure.

Sourc

e

FAMILITUR (Spanish Domestic and

Outbound Tourism Survey) Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Minimum number of months accounting for at least 80% of the tourism expenditure of the Spanish in Spain.

Obje

ctive

7 Promote the deseasonalisation of tourism

Description

Increase the proportion of holiday makers travelling in the low and mid season to reduce tourism’s seasonality.

Indic

ato

r

7.a Duration of the mid-high season of non-resident tourism

Indicator showing the duration of the mid season of non resident tourism, understanding this to be the season concentrating at least 80% of total international tourism expenditure in Spain.

Sourc

e

EGATUR Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Minimum number of months accounting for at least 80% of international tourism expenditure in Spain.


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Instr

um

ents

A Boosting knowledge, entrepreneurship and training

Description

Improve the tourism-sector human resources on the basis of three perspectives:

Make further progress in the production, management and dissemination of knowledge. Attract excellent talent for enhancing the sector’s entrepreneurship.

Bring training supply more closely into line with sector demands in higher education and occupational training.

Indic

ato

r

A.a Spain’s position in relation to the comprehension of the annual travel and

transport figures

This indicator helps to monitor Spain’s trend in relation to other countries as regards access to and comprehension of travel and tourism figures, a variable directly bound up with knowledge management and bringing this knowledge to wider notice.

Sourc

e

World Tourism Organisation, WTO

Description

Spain’s position in relation to other countries in terms of ease of access to important and trustworthy tourism information.

Indic

ato

r

A.b Business start-up time

This gauges the business start-up time in terms of complying with legal and administrative requisites. This variable is directly bound up with the government’s ability to speed up and increase the entrepreneurial capacity of all sectors (including tourism).

Sourc

e

The World Bank (Doing Business 2010).

Description

Number of days necessary on average for starting a business complying with all relevant legislation and without external help.

Indic

ato

r

A.c Sector entrepreneurship trend

This indicator studies the entrepreneurial level in terms of the number of newly registered workers in the tourism sector in comparison to the whole Spanish productive fabric.

Sourc

e

Central company directory) Directorio central de empresas Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE).

Description

Number of newly registered workers in activities most closely bound up with tourism in comparison to all productive sectors.


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Indic

ato

r

A.d Spain’s position in relation to company investment in personnel training and

development

This variable enables us to monitor Spain’s trend in comparison to other countries in terms of company concern for the training and developing of their personnel. This indicator is directly bound up with the training objective.

Sourc

e

Executive Opinion Survey 2009, 2010 World Economic Forum

Description

Spain’s position in comparison with other countries in terms of company concern for the training and career development of their employees.


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Instr

um

ento

s

B Improve the tourism supply

Description

Improve tourism supply in terms of entrepreneurial profitability and perception by the tourist. This instrument is measured by indicators of entrepreneurial profitability proposed for the first objective. Other indicators of supply perception, drawn up by the Secretary of State for Tourism (Secretaría de Estado de Turismo) through Turespaña, will also be used.


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Instr

um

en

tos C Diversifying demand

Description

Broaden the client base and diversify outbound markets to offset the current lopsidedness of Spain’s tourism supply.

Indic

ato

r

C.a Annual trend in the number of countries representing 80% of non-resident

tourism expenditure

Indicator designed to measure the degree of diversification in outbound markets adding up to at least 80% of the total non-resident tourist expenditure in Spain in any one year.

Sourc

e

EGATUR Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Number of outbound countries representing at least 80% of the yearly expenditure in Spain by non resident tourists.

Indic

ato

r

C.b Annual trend in the percentage of seaside-resort seeking tourists among total

tourists

Indicator designed to gauge the degree of diversification in client reasons for travelling.

Sourc

e

EGATUR. Instituto de Estudios Turísticos (IET).

Description

Travelling reasons other than seaside resorts as a share of total reasons.

MEASURES


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In this section the PNIT defines the package of measures13 that the Secretaría de Estado de

Turismo, through Turespaña, supports for achievement of the desired Destination Spain, on

the basis of the diagnosis made in the previous section, for each one of the pivotal factors.

An indication is given below of the 28 measures in their corresponding pivotal factor:

13

The Plan measures will not mean a personnel cost increase for any of the centres affected. Furthermore, the actions envisaged for regional and local authorities can be tackled without the need for any additional financing.

Destination

Spain

Strength

of the

Spain

brand

Coordinated development of the Spain brand

Driving the Strategic Marketing Plan

Permanent EU representation of Spain's tourism

interests

Destination

Spain

Focus on clients

Launching of the programme “Fidelización España”.

Driving a campaign to stimulate national tourism

demand.

Modulation of airport fees.

Streamlining the tourism visa process.

Destination

Spain

Supply-side and

destinations.

Support for the repositioning of mature destinations.

Credit facilities for renewing tourism infrastructure.

Support for Tourism Municipalities

Smart destinations: innovation in destination

management.

Networks of customer experience management

agencies.

Standardisation of the rating and categorisation of

hotels, rural accommodation and campsites.

Evolution of the Spanish Tourism Quality System.

Bringing out the importance of Spain's cultural and natural heritage, wine and cuisine.

Encouragement of eco-friendly, sustainable tourism


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Destination

Spain

Public-private alignment.

Analysis of the impact of all proposed legislation on the tourism sector.

Encouraging market unity.

Amendment of tourism-affecting legislation

Bringing the private sector into Turespaña's decision-making and financing processes

Support for the internationalisation of Spain's tourism firms

Single window for groundbreaking entrepreneurs and firms

Destination

Spain

Knowledge

Drawing up the Turespaña Services Catalogue

Reorganisation and modernisation of the Spanish Diplomatic-Mission Tourism Departments Abroad

Reorientation of national tourism statistics

Destination

Spain

Talent

and

entrepreneurship

Credit facilities for young tourism entrepreneurs

Programme of innovating tourism entrepreneurs

Bringing training and research procedures into line with business demand


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A country’s brand is a fundamental asset that plays a key role in its economic

relations and international policy. It is also a competitiveness factor that could

represent a high percentage of the total value of national economies.

Spain is one of the world’s biggest economies but its brand seems to be punching

below its weight in recent years. In the private sector many Spanish firms eschew the

Spain brand when undertaking their own internationalisation process. As a result the

brand is losing ground and forfeiting growth potential.

As for the public sector, the brand management strategy and coordination efforts

have been insufficient to date. Although there are some institutions that have been

developing the brand effectively, they do so in a piecemeal rather than across-the-

board fashion: for example the Instituto Cervantes in the field of language and culture,

the Spanish Institute of Overseas Trade (Instituto Español de Comercio Exterior:

ICEX) in the field of company internationalisation and Turespaña for the promotion of

destination Spain.

Spain comes across as a convivial and authentic country but also whole-hearted; as

such it bends diverse virtues: an efficient country that is at the same time warm and

pleasant to live in. All these characteristics could benefit many business sectors but it

is the tourism sector that is capable of pooling and tapping into all the main attributes

of the Spain brand: the whole-hearted values like happiness, human warmth; cultural

and historical diversity; but also other more businesslike values like efficiency, quality

and modernity.

Spain’s tourism brand thus acts as a lever to improve the overall brand image, with a

particularly notable capacity to regenerate and reinforce the prestige and reputation of

the country brand, thus helping to generate confidence for investing in and setting up

trading relations with Spain.

In this current juncture, and given the need of building up assets to help companies

increase their competitiveness, it is crucial for there to be more coordination of the

stakeholders involved in the construction and promotion of the Spain brand, and for

tourism to be a key sector in this initiative.

Through this measure the PNIT aims to promote the objective of strengthening the

cohesion and renown of the Spain brand and also boost the sector’s profitability and

growth, working from the premise that a strong brand ensures bigger operating

margins.


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The measure will be broken down into the following actions:

Concentration of the tourism publicity budget to increase the renown of

Spain brand and bring out its attributes in a particular way to suit each

outbound market.

Incorporation of the tourism perspective as a strategic sector in the

management initiatives of the Spain brand, such as the group “Spain

Brand” led by the Ministry of Overseas Affairs and Cooperation

(Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación).

Presence of Turespaña in the competent bodies for the planning of

cultural actions abroad and lining up the attributes of the Spain brand.

Development of a joint strategy with ICEX for seeking out synergies in

the hybridisation of tourism with other sectors (agrofood, kitchenware,

accommodation- and restaurant-furniture, etc.) to benefit from any

action taken by Turespaña in aspects such as promotion.

Promotion of the Strategic Marketing Plan

Until 2012 Turespaña lacked any multi-year Strategic Marketing Plan, so all its

promotion activities were taken more or less on an ad hoc, tactical basis. With its new

marketing strategy, Turespaña now has a methodology developed jointly with the

private sector, the regional authorities (Comunidades Autónomas) and recognised

marketing experts, enabling it to prioritise investments by markets and, within these,

by products and segments.

Despite this solid methodology, however, there is still a dearth of cross-checkable

information on the demand for trips from the various outbound countries. This would

enable us not only to prioritise the abovementioned factors in the conviction that the

underpinning analysis is correct but also ensure that the various target segments

stand out in their own right in each priority market.

To obtain proper knowledge to back up tactical decisions and strategies, an

“Omnibus” research study will periodically be drawn up with the general aim of

obtaining trustworthy results from a representative sample of tourism demand in 25

outbound markets. This research will be designed with a dual strategic interest:

ascertaining which are the priority products for each market and breaking down

tourists in terms of reasons for travelling. This will serve as a thoroughgoing base for


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underpinning any market-prioritisation decisions, reallocation of resources or other

decisions in the future strategic plan.

With this measure the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, aims to

allocate resources to tourism promotion in a more effective and efficient way, also

harnessing the new information technologies as necessary. The overall aim in all this

will be to set the country apart from its competitors and thus enable it to capture new

markets and segments, stressing, among other aspects, the accessibility and

affordability of Spain’s tourism destinations. There will also be promotion of tourism

products to diversify Spain’s tourism: cultural, urban, internal, rural, enogastronomic,

cruises, MICE, sailing, family-friendly tourism, etc.

Actions taken to promote Turespaña’s Strategic Marketing Plan are the following:

Draw up a draft Strategic Marketing Plan for each market type (North

America, Ibero-America, Asia-Pacific, Northern Europe, Central Europe,

Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and the Middle East) based on a

thoroughgoing demand study.

Define the priorities in terms of different positions and products in each

market type for the next four years, specifying a plan of annual tactical

activities.

Creation of an executive working group for giving advice on annual tactical

approaches applicable to each outbound market, in collaboration with the

regional authorities. In the first phase this group will be set up in the Round

Table of General Directors (Mesa de Directores Generales) and will enrich

the decision-taking of Turespaña’s management in the following aspects:

o Consultancy and advice in the operational approach of Turespaña’s

marketing activity: selection of tools, prioritisation of products and

markets, formulation of the competitive position of Spain brand in

each market, etc.

o Consultancy and monitoring of Turespaña’s marketing plans by

regions or zones and annual market research plan, to be carried out

by IET.

o Approval of the creation of advisory committees on specific matters.


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Permanent EU representation of Spain’s tourism interests

The development of the tourism sector has historically played second fiddle within the

policies and actions of the European Union. In recent years, however, its position has

been significantly upgraded after ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon in December

2009, enshrining tourism too as a community policy.

Moreover, the Spanish EU presidency in the first half year of 2010 worked busily in this direction too, calling an informal ministerial meeting that spawned the “Madrid Declaration”. This document then served as the basis for the tourism-related Communication by the European Commission entitled “Europe, the world's No 1 tourist destination – a new political framework for tourism in Europe”, which sets out 21 actions or specific projects to be implemented for constructing and consolidating its European policy.

The headway made by the tourism sector within the European field of decision-taking

calls for continued monitoring by the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo of all these

changes and particularly the affairs that directly or indirectly affect Spain’s tourism

interests, such as defence of Spain’s accessibility by air or road, among others.

The functions to be carried out in this direction will be the following:

Coverage of participation in all the working groups created by the EU

Competitiveness Council and tourism-related councils set up by the

Commission.

Liaison with the European Travel Commission, the organisation that the

European Commission wishes to convert into the agency for promoting

Europe as a tourism destination in distant outbound markets.

Become a permanent information and consultancy point for Spanish

tourism firms participating in the continually increasing number of tenders

held by the European Commission, to ensure that the bidding firms are in

the best possible position each time for winning the contract in question.


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Focus on clients

Launching of the programme “Fidelización España”

(Customer Loyalty Programme)

There is a high rate of repetition among clients choosing Spain as a destination. In

the case of British and German tourists this rate tops 70%. Any company that boasted

this repetition rate would probably invest in a customer loyalty programme since the

commercial or promotion cost of encouraging customer loyalty of existing tourists is

less than capturing new ones.

If this idea is broached from the viewpoint of the desired vision of Destination Spain,

the creation of a customer loyalty programme would be a groundbreaking initiative in

relation to other competing countries and would have numerous applications and

knock-on benefits taking in not only companies of the tourism sector but also other

Spanish firms. The customer loyalty programme could also be applied in a more

particular form to the host of same-day trippers who visit us assiduously from cross-

border countries.

In the framework of the PNIT, the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through

Turespaña, will develop a customer loyalty programme for the outbound tourism

markets of the United Kingdom and Germany with the objective of generating

repetition incentives, broadening the tourist’s trip horizons, offering possibilities and

products of superior quality by means of an individualised points programme.

The target groups of this programme will be made up by tourists living in Germany or

the United Kingdom who travel to Spain, for whatever reason and whichever type of

trip they make. The customer loyalty service, however, will be open to all natural

persons of any nationality.

The multi-sponsor customer loyalty system (sistema de fidelización multipatrocinador)

will be carried out by way of customer loyalty cards (hard copy and online), for which

Spanish firms belonging to all fields of tourism demand will be eligible. This includes

directly trip-related firms such as hotels, travel agents, airline companies, etc and also

other demand sectors such as supermarkets, department stores, shopping malls and

key services such as telephony and healthcare, among others. Other tourism

promotion firms in Spanish destinations of a public or public-private character will also

be entitled to opt in, such as tourism boards, regional tourism agencies and others of

a cultural character such as museums, theatres, cultural centres, etc.

Associated companies in the United Kingdom and Germany bearing a close relation

with Spain will also be embraced by the programme, such as distributors of Spanish


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wine, tour operators, travel agents or companies of majority Spanish capital or those

generating high expenditure in Spain.

This system will work in terms of a card points-accumulation system based on

purchases made in any of the establishments associated with the points programme.

These points can then be exchanged for products or services in Spain or for Spanish

products in their home countries.

Promoting a campaign to stimulate national tourism demand

In its annual FAMILITUR (Spanish Domestic and Outbound Tourism Survey) report

the Instituto de Estudios Turísticos shows the tourism trends of Spanish travellers and

holiday makers. This survey reveals a fall in national tourism (Spanish people

spending their holiday in Spain), in relation to outbound tourism from Spain (Spanish

people spending their holiday abroad). (IET, 2011)

Year

Year-on variation in national

tourism in relation to total

tourism

Year-on variation in outbound

tourism in relation to total tourism

2009 -0.58% +8.10%

2010 -0.66% +8.49%

2011 -0.51% +5.98%

There is therefore a demand from the tourism sector itself for the Secretaría de

Estado de Turismo to coordinate the promotion of Spanish destinations at national

level, since there is no other government body with the powers to do so.

This set of factors makes it particularly necessary to design a measure to encourage

the participation of all involved sectors, both public and private (tourist and non-

tourist).

It is for this reason that the main objective of this measure is to carry out, for the first

time ever, a national tourism campaign to convince Spanish tourists to take their

holidays at home.

The promotion actions will concentrate on the holiday periods of summer and

Christmas to try to convince as many people as possible to spend their holidays in a

Spanish destination.


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An account is given below of the set of national tourism campaign activities bound up

with this measure:

First and foremost partners will be captured to offer institutional and

economic support for launching the communication campaign: regional

authorities, local authorities, business associations, major tourism firms, the

media, etc. There are different ways of participating as a partner within the

campaign:

o Membership of the campaign programme by helping to

communicate it in their establishments and taking on the

commitment of providing top-quality services.

o Financing the development of advertising ideas and purchase of

media slots (financial input) or making their own outlets available for

the campaign: newsletters, publicity spaces, etc.

An important aspect of the campaign will be the capturing of public figures

or ambassadors to collaborate in the communication.

The communication campaign will be three phase:

o Publicity campaign. In this endeavour public-private collaboration

will be encouraged in various ways:

Production of advertising ideas: companies would directly

defray their participation to the company selected for the

campaign.

Purchase of media slots: drawing up a media plan in which

each firm would directly defray their participation to the

media concerned.

Assignment of spaces: planning the assignment of spaces

(e.g. advertising hoardings of local councils, travel agencies,

etc.).

o Public relations campaign. Presentation of the project to the diverse

media for them to publicise it further afield.


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o Campaign in social networking sites: the aim of the publicity

campaign and use of social networking sites will be to increase the

participation of Spanish tourists, encouraging them to recount their

experiences and thereby generating content for promotion abroad.

Awareness-raising campaign: communication in specialised media, posters

in work centres, letters, etc. explaining the importance of the quality service

for the client in terms of encouraging loyalty.

Modulation of airport fees

In the stock-taking section of this desired vision for Destination Spain mention was

made of a series of factors that make Spain’s tourism model particularly seasonal.

This seasonality means a lower use of infrastructure, both public and private, and

also a quicker personnel turnover and lower employment quality, with negative

impacts on the service quality perceived by the tourist and on the life of the workers

involved.

Not all of the abovementioned factors can be reduced or removed, but it is

nonetheless essential to take any action that might lessen or offset the negative

effects of Spanish tourism’s seasonality. This plan therefore proposes the policy of

reducing airport fees for off-season days in airports of the Canary islands and during

the winter months in airports of the Balearic isles.

Air traffic is a transverse activity impinging on many other subsectors, so the short-

term objectives, both direct and indirect, are the following:

Favour the deseasonalisation of Spain’s tourism demand by increasing the

duration of the mid season, offsetting the aforementioned negative effects.

Increase the total demand of air travellers throughout the calendar year.

The overall increase of this demand should be channelled in the mid

season periods and in the increase of city-breaks.

Generate stable employment both in airport facilities and, above all, in the

companies of the tourism destinations in the hinterland of the various

airport facilities.

Reduce the social and environmental impact of the traveller flow peaks and

favour the continual use of tourism infrastructure and services throughout

the whole year, not only in holiday periods, thereby fomenting the


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sustainability of the tourism model and a more efficient use of resources.

The upshot will be a saving in operating costs. Furthermore, a more

uniform distribution of flights over time would reduce acoustic pollution and,

above all, the build-up of CO2 in the lower levels of the atmosphere; this

tends to be a bigger problem in the summer, coinciding with the highest

traffic peaks.

A working group will be set up to run this measure, with the participation of the

ministries of Public Works (Fomento), Finance and Liaison between Government

Levels (Hacienda y Administraciones públicas) and Industry, Energy and Tourism

(Industria, Energía y Turismo). This working group will analyse the current private

pricing models, public financial contributions, the management of fees applicable to

the right to use airport services and facilities (Aena Aeropuertos S.A) and the right to

use air-navigation services and facilities (AENA) to analyse the variability of fees,

taking into account such factors as the time of year, the time of day or even the day of

the week and others, all of which impinge on the private prices charged: noise

surcharge, airport classification in groups by volume of air traffic and incorporation of

green taxes.

The conclusions drawn by this working group should enable control policies to be

carried out as well as a predictive model for fees and demand trend, assuming at all

times a knock-on effect on the prices charged by airline operators, with a concomitant

off-season reduction.

New air routes will also be encouraged under the existing convention between Aena

Aeropuertos and Turespaña.

Streamlining the tourism visa process

In recent years there has been a growth in the number of tourism visa applications by

emerging markets. The emerging markets with tourism importance for Spain include

Russia, Ukraine, China, Turkey and India.

These countries have a very notable future growth capacity due, among other factors,

to their upward economic trend and the consolidation or growth of social classes who

can now afford tourism travel. Together with the increase in air connections and a

stepping up of promotion activity by Turespaña and other regional-government and

private organisations, this has spawned a steady growth in the demand from these

countries for trips to Spain with a corresponding increase in the number of visa

applications.

The table below shows the number of visas issued in the last 4 years and the growth

forecast for 2012 (Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación, 2011) of the

main emerging markets:


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Country

Year Russia Ukraine China India Turkey

2008 344,613 22,207 23,775 12,690 21,266

2009 292,428 16,958 25,245 16,160 19,476

2010 513,479 32,115 30,997 17,306 27,638

2011 978,553 75,003 69,450 38,558 40,649

201214

+20/25% +30/40% +20/30% +30% +30%

This increase has been fuelled by a government reinforcement of visa management.

A key factor in encouraging a steady growth in these markets is action to solve the

consular service problem: personnel saturation and little leeway for dealing with peak

visa processing needs.

To improve this situation this plan proposes a set of actions to streamline the tourism

visa processing service by establishing swifter, more flexible, economical and secure

methods of tourist access to Spain. These would reduce the consular bottleneck,

improve the image of Spain’s bureaucracy among outbound markets and cut labour,

administrative and economic costs in consular offices.

In pursuit of these objectives actions will be developed in cooperation with the

Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación (MAEC); these can be broken down

into three lines of action: reinforcement, cooperation and development.

Rearranging the visa processing personnel:

o The necessary negotiations will be carried out to optimise the global

outsourcing contract, system-possibilities permitting, in the management of

visa applications.

Cooperation with tour operators:

o To bring resource allocation into line with demand a key aspect will be

forecasting the degree of seasonality in traveller flows. Liaison will

therefore be stepped up between local tourism operators and agents, the

Regional Diplomatic-Mission Tourism Departments (Consejerías de

14

Visa increase forecast in 2012


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Turismo) and consulates to ensure proper planning of workloads, thereby

balancing resources to suit demand.

o Consensus will also be sought in the simplification of procedures and

reduction of time in processing applications, doing so by adopting common

and reasonable criteria by stakeholders.

o An effort will also be made to define and establish other outlets and

procedures of preferential attention for consolidated operators and

agencies and also basic visa-management training for travel agents and

local operators.

The visa processing policy:

o Action here will aim to encourage and extend more flexible visa

arrangements in terms of validity period and multiple entries, for example,

visas issued to businessmen from countries recording a growing exchange

of visits, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, China, India and the United Arab

Emirates; fomenting the joint visa policy of the EU Commission, with

special reference to the possibility of eliminating the reciprocal visa

requirement between the Russian Federation and the EU.

Lastly, as well as these actions, activity will also be stepped up within the visa

management working group, made up by representatives of the MAEC, business

associations and Turespaña. This will now meet up on an ordinary basis quarterly

and, extraordinarily, whenever sought by any of the parties to deal with emergency

situations. There will also be a collaborative work platform: private information

exchange area.


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Supply-side and Destinations

Support for the repositioning of mature destinations

Within a general context of maturity in the life-cycle of the central product of Spain’s

tourism supply, many destinations, historic drivers of Spain’s tourism growth, are now

confronting a systemic problem. Certain mature destinations have now entered a

vicious circle of growing price competition with destinations that have a lower cost

structure. This prevents them from keeping sales prices at realistic levels, eating

away at profit margins, discouraging ploughback investment and bringing down the

level of perceived quality. This in turn reduces the willingness to pay of potential

travellers and increases the pressure on prices. The upshot of this vicious circle is a

steady deterioration of the destination and a continual drain of competitiveness.

The origin of the vicious circle is not in itself the physical deterioration of the supply

but rather the absence of any competitive standout position to suit the actual trip

demand. The commoditisation of the product is the reason for the huge price-demand

elasticity.

That said, the current context of physical deterioration of the resorts is preventing

hotels from passing on improvement costs into prices, since the average daily rate

(ADR) of any destination determines the hotel’s ADR. This means that any initiative to

reverse this situation would have to be across the board and all-in, as well as fitting in

with a standout competitive position.

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo considers that the real and integral

transformation of any destination would call for a considerable boost to the private

sector, in aspects requiring a significant critical mass of private investment. Take the

example of the so-called 4th generation resorts, veritable destinations within the

destination, with a high concentration in certain target groups and giving a strong

theme to the travelling experience.

Government authorities at each level (central, regional and local) would all have to

drive this effort within their own remits: falling into line with the strategy of investment

in private initiative, encouraging town- and country-planning procedures that favour

these initiatives, financing public infrastructure that tops up private investment and

establishing a framework that allows for new, transformation-favouring business

models.

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, within its remit, will focus

on laying down the bases to favour new products in line with the transformation of

mature destinations. Special mention among these new products must go to those

related to preventive healthcare. As pointed out in the stock-taking part of this plan,


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one of the keys to the long-term cycle we are now entering will be healthcare

innovations, especially in preventive healthcare. Ageing of the baby-boom generation

in Spain’s main outbound markets, together with the need for health services, the

high cost of these services in those countries and the ideal patient-rehabilitation

conditions, now constitute an opportunity that needs to be harnessed. In terms of the

transformation of mature destinations this is an expanding market of high purchasing

power that now needs to rearranged and brought into line with the current supply, but

which can exploit the traditional attributes of these destinations (climate, beaches,

attention, etc.) as an added value. Moreover, this demand is much less seasonal than

traditional seaside-resort tourism.

This measure is geared towards developing more favourable conditions for

generating a new business base in mature destinations, cutting out red tape, bringing

out the common elements that favour the creation of authentic “clusters” of supply

and furnishing private initiative with the market intelligence for identifying segments,

value-generating ideas, business opportunities and competitive threats.

This measure eschews mere town-planning action, which has characterised the

approach to this problem in the past. As we have already pointed out, this approach

does not tackle the cause of the problem but only one of its symptoms.

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, will put all its knowledge

and liaison capacity behind this measure, doing so in the following aspects:

Identification of business opportunities that involve distinctive value-generating

ideas of relevance to specific demand sectors of international trip demand.

Organisation of periodic meetings for dealing with business opportunities with

potential investors, businessmen and local authorities.

Transformation of current structures (consortia) in public-private liaison

platforms for drawing up development proposals and swifter arrangements for

dealing with any permits and licences that might be needed.

Definition of the strategy to promote the created products with the objective of

positioning them at international level and drawing up a roadmap of the

initiatives to be carried out.

Support for definition of service standards for the products to be developed.


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Encouragement of the necessary conditions for the intermediation market to

work online for generating a combined supply, in due accordance with the

findings in the measure to boost tourism-experience managers.

Carrying out demand studies and support for contact with aggregators through

the OET network.

Support with actions of promotion to create a single point of reference of

supply vis-à-vis the external market.

Encourage the conversion into Smart destinations (measure proposed within

this Plan).

Financing through the State Financial Fund for Modernisation of Tourism

Infrastructure (Fondo Financiero del Estado para la Modernización de las

Infraestructuras Turísticas: FOMIT) of, among others, the creation of open

spaces in mature destinations.

Credit facilities for renewing tourism infrastructure

From 2009 to 2011 the national government implemented diverse plans to finance

infrastructure investments that involved improvements in environmental sustainability,

especially those geared towards energy efficiency, water- and energy-saving and,

lastly, the implementation of new technologies.

Two factors tended to undermine these plans. The first of these was the limitation of

subsidisable investments to those involving environmental and technological

advances, excluding some financing projects. The second factor was the trimming of

interest-rate rebates down to market rates to prevent the state from taking on an

excessive financial load and thereby increasing public debt.

The need to work in the aforementioned framework of financial restriction prompted a

redefining of the former plans, replacing them with new credit facilities for tourism

firms. These would offer financing at arms length rates but removing the limitation of

subsidisable investments to those involving technological or environmental

improvements. This new approach makes all tourism infrastructure eligible for

financing of renewal activities, increases the demand pool and avoids the non-takeup

of renewal funds as happened in previous years.

The main objective of this measure is progressive renewal of Spain’s tourism

infrastructure to improve energy efficiency, incorporate technology and improve


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accessibility of groups with special needs, among others, and also to generate jobs,

direct and indirect, in the tourism sector and other related sectors.

The main beneficiaries of the measure are tourism firms, especially SMEs; the

amount of each renewal project will be capped to ensure that financing is not granted

only to the projects of major firms.

The measure will be implemented by way of agreements between the Secretaría de

Estado de Turismo and public credit institutions (Instituto de Crédito Oficial, ICO)

which will manage the facility jointly with banks. The Secretaría de Estado de

Turismo, through the State Corporation for Management of Tourism Technologies

and Innovation (Sociedad Estatal para la Gestión de la Innovación y las Tecnologías

Turísticas: SEGITTUR), will see to the provision of funds and the distribution of the

facility among the firms.


Historically, Spanish tourism development has centred on seaside-resort tourism in

certain municipalities and at certain times of the year. This leads to a specific problem

in the sustainability of destinations, deriving from facility- and service-overload of said

municipalities in the high season.

Tourism demand is becoming increasingly selective and choosy. Tourists can now

choose each year from several alternatives; price elasticity is high, and resorts are

rated not only by the directly contracted private services (transport, hotel,

restaurant…) but also by other components that also impinge on the tourism

experience (cleanliness, quality of infrastructure and facilities, security and safety,

information, healthcare, beaches, cultural heritage and cuisine …) but which do not

enter in the price of the package bought from the marketing firm. To sum it up in one

sentence: a 4-star hotel has to be set in a 4-star environment.

The sustainability of tourism destinations has to be assured first and foremost from

the planning viewpoint. To this end an instrument or method will be implemented,

based on Agenda 21 of sustainable tourism designed by the European Union, to help

the planners of local authorities find out the current situation of their tourism

development model, apply monitoring indicators and design sustainable tourism

action plans including activities to bring these attributes to wider notice.

Agenda 21 of sustainable tourism for local authorities pinpoints the variables or

attributes that affect a destination’s sustainability (from a threefold environmental,

economic and social point of view). As such it can be used for inferring the variables

to be used for creating a “status of sustainable tourism municipality”. These can then

be used as the basis for applying a new model of tourism management and


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organisation to facilitate the development and economic growth of these

municipalities.

A crucial factor here will be the participation and support of other government levels.

Collaboration formulae will therefore be established by all other government levels to

support these tourism local authorities, in accordance with their own particular

features. The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, for its part, will support this new

status with specific actions:

Promotion and communication of the attributes of sustainable tourism

municipalities in international markets.

Establishment of objective criteria for assessing the “status of tourism

municipality” by IET in coordination with the INE as the organisation

proposing the indicators, both direct (number of visitors, overnight stays in

hotels, etc.) and indirect (for example those related with energy and water

consumption).

The current concern for sustainability, which could be almost written off as a

adornment in destination strategy only a few short years ago, is now becoming an

increasingly important factor in determining purchase or rejection by tourists in most

of Spain’s outbound markets. Any destination that fails to take these issues on board

and/or is not perceived as sustainable, will not be eligible for consideration as a

leading destination in the future.

Smart destinations: innovation in destination management

The need of offering tourists distinctive, highly competitive services obliges the

national tourism system to seek new innovation-boosting mechanisms. In this context

both knowledge and new technologies, especially information and communication

technologies (ICTs), are the basis for the value-inputting market changes.

Nonetheless, there are certain difficulties hindering the full deployment of all the

tourism sector’s innovation potential. Although the intermediation subsector has a

high ICT takeup, this is not generally true for tourism services as a whole.

This measure therefore aims to establish the necessary mechanisms for rapid

incorporation of innovations, defining a uniform framework for increasing the technical

skills of tourism destinations under the concept of Smart destinations, in line with the

trend of creating Smart Cities.


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The Sociedad Estatal para la Gestión de la Innovación y las Tecnologías Turísticas,

SEGITTUR, will establish the methodology covering all the bases and minimum

requisites to be met by a tourism destination to qualify as a “Smart destination”.

This qualification will serve as the basis for improving destination-management quality

and sustainability on the strength of efficient incorporation of ICTs into the services.

The direct recipients will be the tourism destination managers, especially those of

mature destinations. These will be provided with the necessary qualification and

implementation tools to be eligible for distinction as Smart destinations.

The methodology will be defined in collaboration with prestigious Spanish universities,

business schools and research institutions with past or current research experience in

projects of this type. It also includes other types of public and private organisations

capable of inputting technological solutions bound up with economic development,

mobility, the environment, tourism services, etc.

This experience, unique at European level, will enable Spain to lead a process of

integral application of innovation in tourism destinations. This will endow Spain with

greater visibility and boost its ranking as a worldwide tourism destination.

The Smart destinations project involves a whole series of implementation actions:

Firstly, a base document will be drawn up defining what it means to be a

Smart destination and the minimum eligibility requisites.

On the basis of these requisites a specific definition will be made of how to

qualify as a Smart destination.

Once these eligibility requisites have been established, work will begin on

pilot qualification projects. These will be set up preferably in mature

destinations currently under conversion and in those that express an

interest.

To finance this qualification process the investment-project assessment

criteria of the Fondo Financiero del Estado para la Modernización de las

Infraestructuras Turísticas (FOMIT) will include the financing category of

“measures conducive to the takeup of new tourism management

technologies in mature destinations”.

A definition will be made of a new model of tourism information office in

destinations, facilitating their standardisation and implementation by the

regional authorities and localities: the "C21st Tourism Office". This office

will not only facilitate information on the destination and promote it but also


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help in its marketing, breaking down the local product to suit visitor

preferences. It will be a groundbreaking space serving as a benchmark

meeting point between the area concerned and visitors, using new

technologies and cutting-edge applications for this purpose. This project,

with a major technological, multicultural and multilingual component, will

allow visitors to interact with the tourism destination and other less known

destinations nearby. It will also allow the destination to cull and analyse a

host of tourist information on the site.

The project will contribute towards coordination and technology transfer

between regional authorities, resulting in the optimisation and

rationalisation of economic resources of each one and improved

competitiveness of all destinations. To do so SEGITTUR will create a

technological platform allowing the regional authorities to swap information,

good practices, knowledge, technological developments and tourism

products. This platform will be set up as a collaborative area for joint

implementation of groundbreaking projects in the ongoing endeavour of

improving the competitiveness and tourism sustainability of its regional

authorities.

Networks of customer experience management agencies

The marketing of package tours has typically involved watertight service groupings:

transport (plane and train), transfer and hotel room. Service groupings of this type,

carried out by tour operators, are hardly likely to bring out the crucial, standout

difference of the tourism destination. The current trend in tourism marketing is

towards a conception of the tourism product as an amalgam of different services to

meet an experience demanded by the customer.

The challenge of getting across experience-related tourism products to tourists is

especially stiff in tourism outside the traditional seaside type. Internal tourism, greatly

affected by its concentration in national demand, can be reoriented towards European

markets if the supply is shaped and conceived to bring out the unique nature of its

particular experience.

For this trend to be generalised throughout Spain, it is necessary to surmount certain

hurdles:


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The destination’s real standout features often do not tally with the service

characteristics as reflected in traditional package tours: they are not

homogenous features and cannot be pooled into a critical mass so they

lack interest for tour operators.

Business participation in product generation in destinations does not run

the whole gamut of experiences that might be marketed. Though such

products as golf or sailing do feature prominently, there is a huge growth

leeway for other experiences.

There is an opportunity here for the private sector to cover this activity and bring

these experiences to the international marketing outlets, inputting more value than by

mere intermediation alone.

Key features in this new approach are entrepreneurship, the new business

management disciplines, the technological capacity of integration in marketing

networks, advanced knowledge of demand for experiences of this type and the

support of promotion under the Spain brand umbrella.

Under this plan a measure will be designed to encourage the development of bases

for the creation of a network of “Destination-based tourist experience management

agencies” to foment the management of standout products and tourism activities with

a more experience-based approach in line with the product guidelines being defined

in the Turespaña-led Strategic Marketing Plan.

To generate these bases the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo will furnish this

programme with a series of aid packages and functions both for companies and for

entrepreneurs that wish to move into this business. To this end the following actions

will be determined:

SEGITTUR will give priority to those proposals related to this business

activity and involving young entrepreneurs financed under the agreement

with ENISA (Empresa Nacional de Innovación, S.A.), mentioned further on

in this PNIT.

Encouragement of agreements with different national and international

business schools to propose the programme to postgraduate students, with

the aim of bringing excellent entrepreneurial talent into the fold. The

Turespaña Tourism Experience Award (Premio Experiencia Turística

Turespaña) will be promoted.

Implementation of an entrepreneur mentoring programme in liaison with

businessmen of acknowledged experience in entrepreneurship.


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Definition of a technological framework in line with European initiatives

currently underway to increase interoperability in the standout supply and

access to the main marketing channels.

Development of a specific supply within Turespaña’s Service Catalogue

(Catálogo de Servicios) for this type of experience management firms.

Entrepreneurs who have opted into the programme will be given

preferential access to OET-brokered information on the outbound markets

and contact services with intermediaries to be provided in this Service

Catalogue.

Support, through Turespaña’s promotion and publicising activities, with

participation in specific tradefairs organised for firms of this type. The

product generated by the customer experience management agencies will

also be backed up by Turespaña’s online promotion services.

Development of a new function and creation of new profiles in Turespaña’s

organisation: product managers. The purpose of these professional profiles

will be support of international promotion, under the Spain brand umbrella,

of the products managed by these agency networks.

Proposal of grants for entrepreneurs that have opted into the programme,

work experience in destination management organisations in line with the

business’s target experience.

Standardisation of the rating and categorisation of hotels,

rural accommodation and campsites

In Spain it is the remit of the regional authorities to legislate the necessary rating of

hotels, rural accommodation and campsites. Many of the current rating models

concentrate on structural elements, leaving aside service-related aspects or other

singular features valued by the client. This diversity is a hindrance both for tourists

and the subsector of hotels, rural accommodation and campsites.

In February 2010 concern about this lack of uniformity prompted the Spanish Tourism

Board (Consejo Español de Turismo: CONESTUR) to set up a hotel standardisation

working group within the Executive Committee, to seek a solution to the hotel rating

problem by analysing legislation at Spanish regional level and the main European

models. This hotel-standardisation working group has defined the problem posed by

the differences between the hotel regulations of the regional authorities and suggests


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the adoption of a hotel rating system similar to “HotelStars”, which has now been

taken up by some European countries.

This system awards points on the basis of 270 criteria, some mandatory and others

optional, and lays down a fixed number of points for each one of various hotel

categories. It represents a change of philosophy in comparison to the traditional hotel

rating system, based on quantitative criteria, taking in such aspects as quality

management, cleanliness and comfort of the facilities.

In the case of rural accommodation and tourism campsites, there is an even greater

dispersion of classification according to the standards of the regional authorities.

Neither is there any consensus on a rating system allowing for the specific features of

this sector.

In light of all these factors this aspect has been dealt with in the PNIT. The overall aim

in doing so is to encourage the adoption of uniform hotel-, rural-accommodation- and

campsite-rating systems by the various regional authorities.

The following measures will therefore be taken for each one of these subsectors:

Hotel rating: given that there is now a certain consensus about the rating

system to be adopted, the recommendation will be for this system to be

taken up by the regional authorities in the Round Table of the General

Directors of the Sector-Based Conference.

Categorisation and rating of rural accommodation and campsites: a

working group will be set up in the Round Table of General Directors for

defining a common rating system incorporating the singular features of

establishments of this type, which can then be taken up by the various

regional authorities.

Evolution of the Spanish Tourism Quality System

Spain vies with some emerging destinations to attract tourists from the outbound

countries. The main advantage these emerging countries hold over Spain is the price.

This price disadvantage has prompted Spain to try to stand out from the rest in terms

of quality instead, taking such measures as setting up the Spanish Tourism Quality

System (Sistema de Calidad Turístico Español; hereinafter SCTE), initially developed

by the central government and by now fully established.


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Its main aim is to endow tourism destinations and firms with tried and tested internal

management instruments that help to cut costs and improve the price-quality ratio of

the goods and services they offer to their clients. These improvements will ultimately

help to firm up the companies’ financial sustainability and increase client loyalty.

There are currently five programmes within SCTE for tackling various lines of action

that impinge on standout quality aspects: SCTE Good practices, SCTE Destinations

or Integral Destination-Based Quality System (SICTED), SCTE Sectors or brand “Q

for Tourism Quality”, SCTE Hosts and SCTE International.

These SCTE quality systems and programmes play a crucial role, bringing out the

quality of Spain’s tourism sector by means of training and awareness-raising of

stakeholders, whether in the public or private sector, but they now need to be adapted

to the current circumstances of the sector to make Spain an international benchmark

of quality tourism.

Recent Turespaña-financed studies of brand weighting in the choice of the tourism

destination Spain show only a moderate acknowledgement of the quality of

accommodation and infrastructure by tourists that have visited Spain and above all

those who have not yet done so. This suggests a problem in the perception of quality.

These findings have prompted the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through

Turespaña, to pose new challenges for the evolution and development of the SCTE in

line with new tourism trends and the current market situation.

The objectives aim to bring tourism entrepreneurs centre stage within the SCTE,

encouraging stakeholders themselves to decide how to implement and develop these

quality methodologies on the basis of co-responsibility.

This involves the following activities:

Turespaña will collaborate with the stakeholders and managing organisations

of SCTE to attract a greater number of entrepreneurs interested in applying

methodologies of this type in their internal productive processes.

A specific package of services will be defined for companies that have

obtained quality certification in Turespaña’s Marketing Services Catalogue.

These services could be, among others: publication of a guide of certified

establishments, accessible through the website spain.info; promotion of

certified destinations on the tourism publicity websites of the state and the

corresponding regional authority; use of certified establishments in campaigns

of social networking sites: prizes with overseas stays, blog contents, games,

etc.; preferential ranking in searches made in the domain Spain.info; creation


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of a hot-side of certified companies accessible through newsletters issued

from the OET network.

Notwithstanding the above, Turespaña will be able to work towards the

groupings of companies and establishments accredited with SCTE emblems,

establishing for that purpose joint international promotion agreements

stressing the certified quality attribute.

Turespaña will conduct studies in collaboration with the main tour operators to

identify which specific quality improvements in the establishments will be

conducive to an increase in perceived quality by the client, whereby they could

become specific attributes of the brand. This knowledge will be passed on to

the managers of the SCTE programmes to bring it to wider notice in

companies.

Bringing out the importance of Spain's cultural and natural

heritage, wine and cuisine

Spain boasts a rich cultural, natural and enogastronomic heritage. This can play an

important part in setting its tourism apart from the rest and also favours geographical

diversification and breaking into new markets.

Although this is a prerequisite for meeting the diversification objective, bringing out its

tourism value is crucial for turning it into a competitiveness factor.

Despite possessing all these resources, Spain’s supply is for various reasons badly

positioned in international markets, so it is essential to carry out activities to boost the

demand for this type of tourism in Spain.

The tangible and intangible heritage is for the most part managed by government

authorities, so this will be the main target of PNIT action. To this end the Secretaría

de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, will provide public heritage managers with

its knowledge and liaison capacity to increase their tourism attractiveness, improve

tourism management, collaborate with the private tourism sector and boost its

financial sustainability by attracting more tourists.

Under this plan various activities will be carried out with the overriding aim of

attracting potential tourists by means of active promotion throughout the year, placing

special stress on the holiday periods of outbound markets that do not coincide with

Spain’s.


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Harnessing the cultural heritage

To this end, in cooperation with regional authorities, the Presidency Ministry

(Ministerio de la Presidencia) (Patrimonio Nacional [National Trust]) and the Ministry

of Education, Culture and Sport (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte), diverse

activities will be carried out to promote cultural tourism. Timetables will include

musical events, singular exhibitions and other activities that do not depend solely or

mainly on the underlying heritage but rather reflect the vitality of the arts in today’s

Spain. To improve this promotion a package of activities will be developed for

integration of the cultural heritage, in which the various organisations work online,

broken down by segments, in due accordance with a single nationwide protocol in the

following areas:

Turespaña is now drafting the general lines of a Collaboration Agreement

with the Secretary of State for Culture (Convenio de Colaboración con la

Secretaría de Estado de Cultura) for the international promotion of cultural

assets and products. The Ministerio de Cultura can act as aggregator of

these Spanish assets but there is a need for bringing them into line with

international demand; this is where the collaboration with Turespaña really

comes into its own. Promotion with paradores (state-owned hotels) will be

stepped up; assets of Spain’s museums will be promoted; collaboration

with the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (Federación

Española de Municipios y Provincias: FEMP) for the councils to adopt

similar designs for their internet portals and city cards; integration of the

public and private sector, unification of the legal and professional system of

the tourism guides of the whole of Spain and drawing up a Cultural Assets

Integration Plan (Plan de Integración de la Oferta Cultural).

Signing of a Collaboration Agreement with Patrimonio Nacional (Spanish

National Trust) for international promotion of the state-owned property that

is part of the royal household.

Signing of a Collaboration Agreement with the Ministry of Defence

(Ministerio de Defensa) for promotion of the historical heritage and cultural

activities of defence.

Establishment of goals through bilateral agreements with the Ministry of

Education, Culture and Sport (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte),

regional and local authorities, foundations, etc. so that most of the cultural-

asset managing organisations certify themselves through the various

programmes of the Sistema de Calidad Turístico Español (SCTE).


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Collaboration with the networks of customer experience management

agencies that contribute added value to Spain’s products, integrating as

they do several elements that help the destination to stand out from the

rest.

Development of standardisation and an interface of high quality

promotional contents available for any tourism organisation that wishes to

use them (open data). Especially important here will be the proposal of

previous information, preferably with one year’s notice, of timetables of

events and temporary exhibitions of cultural assets.

Standardisation of publicly managed cultural-tourism marketing systems to

encourage integration with marketing organisations and creation of a

centralised cultural-asset ticketing management system. Stress will be

placed on marketing management that drives the booking of tickets for

visitors and tourists.

Turespaña will carry out support work for marketing of the cultural public

heritage through the centralised ticket management system to phase it into

the main distribution outlets (tour operators and other intermediaries in

home markets). It will also use all its own assets (OET, portals Spain.info,

España es Cultura, etc.) to promote this supply.

Harnessing the natural heritage

It is essential to take measures to boost conservation of the natural heritage with

concomitant development of the employment and sustainable economy of the area

concerned, doing so by strengthening the tourism demand:

Encourage the creation of a nature-based tourism product (ecotourism

in Spain) drawing on a selection of the best protected sites and best-

prepared tourism firms. Both distinguish themselves by setting up voluntary

tourism-sustainability accreditation systems, recognised at European level.

The selected destinations will be national parks (parques nacionales) and

natural parks (parques naturales) accredited with the European Charter for

Sustainable Tourism, biosphere reserves, geoparks, protected sites of the

Natura 2000 Network and marine reserves. These must have a sufficient

degree of active management and international recognition (they represent

30% of the state land surface), where nature-based tourism is promoted.

The aim here is to guarantee the tourist that Spain has a certified nature-

tourism system, to capture sensitive tourists who are interested in


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contributing with their holiday to the sustainable tourism development of the

protected sites they visit. Work has been carried out by now on 30

protected sites and 610 tourism firms set up in these sites and prepared for

selling this product; this figure already represents a considerable supply.

This action has been carried out in collaboration with the Secretary of State

for the Environment (Secretaría de Estado de Medio Ambiente), agreeing

on the following lines of action:

Fomenting the ecotourism product in the National Park Network.

Harmonisation of the analysis of tourism demand to the National Parks.

Joint promotion of ecotourism in the National Park Network.

Training programme for sustainable ecotourism companies.

Promotion of the ecotourism product in the state-owned hotel network

(Paradores Nacionales).

Promotion of birdwatching tourism with the Spanish Birdwatching Society

(Sociedad Española de Ornitología: SEO).

Upping the profile of nature-based tourism on the website Spain.info

Creation of a pilot ecotourism supply in the tourism marketing platform of

SEGITTUR.

Drawing up the sector-based plan of nature and biodiversity tourism.

Encourage non-motorised tourism use of natural paths and routes (1700

km of fitted-out paths, 71 greenways with local management bodies) as an

eco-friendly form of tourism covering the whole of Spain in non-motorised

means of transport and using rural accommodation.

Drawing up an interpretation plan of the maritime-terrestrial public domain

or coastal heritage for tourism use. The plan objective will be to bring out

the resources of the maritime-terrestrial public domain in seaside resorts,

improving the use of Spain’s coastline and its image as important cultural

and natural heritage through private tourism services and self-guided

interpretation equipment.


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Development of the nature tourism sector plan as laid down in Royal

Decree (Real Decreto) 1274/2011 Strategic plan of natural heritage and

biodiversity 2011-2017 in application of the Law (Ley) of 42/2007. The aim

of this plan is to promote the sustainability of nature-based tourism and it

will be implemented in collaboration with the Secretaría de Estado de

Medio Ambiente of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment

(Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente: MAGRAMA).

Harnessing of the enogastronomic heritage

The recognition of Spain’s wine and cuisine heritage has recently increased at

international level thanks to the successful intervention of public figures and

companies in this field. There is still some way to go, however, to bring out the full

tourism value of this type of product. In this field private management plays a

predominant role.

Priority will therefore be given to promotion of wine and cuisine products in application

of other measures of this Plan:

Joint strategies of tourism hybridisation with the wine-producing and

agrofood sector in coordinating the Spain brand: Internationalisation in

collaboration with ICEX.

Association with exporting firms of the agrofood and wine-producing

sectors for inclusion in the Customer Loyalty Programme.

Priority, in the network of customer experience management agencies, for

those integrating the enogastronomic supply.


The sustainability of environmental tourism should be conceived as a horizontal tool

to be applied across all destinations and tourism resources.

The activities carried out by public authorities and the tourism sector have stressed

above all energy efficiency of tourism resources. The message of cost-saving through

energy efficiency is getting across to the whole sector and an increasing amount of

private investments are being made in this field.

There is also an increasing demand from certain segments of our outbound markets,

who place overriding importance on environment friendly attributes when choosing

their holiday destination. These are identified as eco-smart consumers or Lifestyles of


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Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) consumers, who are keen to have a trustworthy

guarantee that the supply meets their demands.

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, will design a set of

measures that impinge on the structuring of eco-friendly tourism. To do so it will bring

this tourism to wider notice in home markets and increase its access to the main

marketers of this type of products. This plan also appreciates the need for the

involved economic agents to adopt waste-reduction and -management measures

pursuant to the provisions laid down in the Waste and Contaminated Soil Act 22/2011

of 28 July (Ley de residuos y suelos contaminados).

Some specific measures are outlined below:

Identify and select the existing brands and certification systems in the eco-

friendly tourism market to support those that best fit in with Turespaña’s

strategy and meet a minimum product standard level.

Study the feasibility and defining a system of certification-system indicators

through IET for reliable and operational measuring of tourism’s carbon

footprint and its reduction, doing so on the strength of the certification system.

Establish a favourable framework for the market of CO2-offsetting firms,

encouraging business models that forge links with the tourism sector.

Draw up eco-friendly tourism demand studies from the point of view of

identification and segmentation of demand, preferred purchasing outlets, main

home-country marketing stakeholders, most demanded attributes, etc.

Further the international promotion of certified tourism resources and

destinations with the help of all Turespaña’s communication assets: booking

slots in online channels, attendance of Turespaña-organised tradefairs, liaison

with and access to home-country marketers, etc.

Tourist awareness-raising campaigns in collaboration with competent

authorities to prevent littering of the natural environment, famous tourism

sights, leisure areas, transport infrastructure and stations and the urban

environment in general; proper separation of the various types of waste in

suitable containers; and preventing the generation of waste, among others.


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Analysis of the impact of all draft legislation on the tourism

sector

Tourism is a horizontal sector affected by many different types of legislation from

ministerial departments or other public authorities, such as visas, consular fees,

tourism timeshare contracts, etc. Legislation amendments seldom take into account

the possible impact on the tourism sector.

A good example of this is the opinion 6-2010 “On the Consular Fee Draft” drawn up

by the Economic and Social Council (Consejo Económico y Social) with the objective

of establishing a fixed average 7.22% fee increase, expected to increase consular fee

revenue by 4 million euros. The working hypothesis for this expectation was that 80%

of revenue corresponds to tourism visa applications, on the mistaken assumption that

these would hold steady after the fee increase.

This assumption does not take into account the impact of the fee increase on tourism

visa demand.

The sheer importance of the sector for Spain’s economy, together with lack of

awareness about the impact of legislative initiatives on this sector, makes it

necessary to establish the mechanisms for taking into account the impact of any

central government legislation on the tourism sector.

The proposal of the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo in this matter is that a mention

of the tourism impact be made in the financial schedule of the approved Bills.

Promoting market unity

Spain’s tourism regulation is a patchwork mass of legislation passed at four different

levels: European legislation, state legislation, regional legislation and byelaws

approved by the various local authorities.

Pursuant to article 148 of the Spanish Constitution and the provisions laid down in the

various Statutes of Regional Autonomy, the promotion and planning of tourism within

their territorial area has been devolved on the various Regional Authorities

(Comunidades Autónomas). They have hence passed their respective legislation on

the various tourism sectors, which has to coexist with state legislation, supplementary

in character.


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The proliferation of tourism legislation, especially after the tourism boom of the sixties,

has led to the current scenario of a host of regulatory bodies and a huge dispersion in

the regulation of the sector.

The study of tourism regulation in Spain published by the Secretaría de Estado de

Turismo in 2007, which analyses the tourism laws of the seventeen regional

authorities and two Spanish-owned North African cities and the regulation of

seventeen activity subsectors (rural accommodation, hotels, hotel apartments,

restaurants, travel agencies, etc.), is a good starting point for gleaning an idea of the

dimension and diversity of existing legislation.

This study also shows that the strategic value of the tourism sector is very patchy in

the various regional authorities; hence the very different level of development of the

respective legislation from one regional authority to another. This hinders tourism

activity in Spain as a whole and might result in legal insecurity both for consumers

and providers of tourism services.

For this reason, and with the objective of harmonising the regulation of tourism and

maximising the protection of consumers and entrepreneurs involved in the diverse

tourism practices, it is now necessary to promote and lead an interdepartmental

coordination process at the various territorial levels to simplify and harmonise

legislation and maximise the protection of all tourism stakeholders.

This is a complex process but to some extent it has already begun as a result of the

mandatory implementation into Spanish law of Directive 2006/123/EC of the

European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the

internal market.

During the mandatory implementation of this Directive a thoroughgoing review was

conducted of state tourism legislation, and some of the supplementary state

legislation regulating access to some tourism activities was revoked. These were

decrees, royal decrees and ministerial orders, many of them predating the

constitution, that were considered in need of express and formal revocation so that

the regional authorities and autonomous cities, in fulfilling their remit, could adopt the

corresponding tourism organisation laws, which obviously have to be compliant with

Directive 2006/123/EC.

During this implementation process some regional authorities have already begun to

review and amend their legislation. This Plan, in collaboration with the regional

authorities, proposes to set up a think tank within the Round Table of General

Directors (Mesa de Directores Generales), whose duties will be the following:

Evaluate the current disparity in the legislation.


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Evaluate the impact of the legislation disparity with two objectives: get

across to the sector the real impact of this disparity and propose a working

plan and order of priority for legislative harmonisation.

Amendment of the legislation affecting tourism

One of the quintessential traits of tourism is its transverse or across-the-board nature.

This trait, which sets it apart from other activities, has not traditionally been taken into

account when passing legislation on aspects that, though not strictly speaking tourist,

do impinge significantly on the sector’s development and competitiveness. Since our

objective here is to marshal all the nation’s resources in the service of the client, there

is now a need of a series of reforms in the regulation of certain subsectors at national

level with the overall objective of improving the competitive position of destination

Spain.

With this objective in mind, the measure proposes amendment or adoption of the

following legislation:

A.- Labour Reform

The tourism sector generates over 11% of Spain’s direct employment and also

generates knock-on jobs in other sectors that, without strictly speaking being tourism

per se, intervene in the chain as providers and suppliers of services to companies or

tourists.

It is therefore essential to reform the framework of labour relations implemented upon

approval of Royal Decree Law 3/2012 of 10 February of urgent labour market reform,

doing so in such a way as to cater for the employment idiosyncrasies of a key sector

for the Spanish economy, a lever for the economic upturn and a fundamental part of

the country image.

The objective of this measure is to incorporate certain specific features of tourism

employment, modernising labour relations in Spain, aiming at flexibility and reducing

labour rigidity, improving training procedures, creating more and better employment,

furnishing entrepreneurs and workers with mechanisms that avoid the need for

dismissal.

Along these lines, and in view of the proposals of the tourism sector:

Eliminating the rigid classification in occupational categories, adopting a more

flexible criterion and favouring geographical mobility.


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Giving priority to the company agreement over the collective bargaining of the

sector.

Establish a specific right to 20 hours training a year, defrayed by the employer,

and also the obligation of training up any new recruits in the job contents.

Bringing in current-day developments such as teleworking, external flexibility

and also supporting entrepreneurs.

The aim in all this is to achieve a balanced reform meeting all the demands of the

tourism sector and helping to generate quality jobs.

These measures are amplified with specific requests from the Secretaría de Estado

de Turismo in collaboration with other government authorities, a posteriori by

establishing legal procedures.

Along these lines, one of the idiosyncrasies of employment in the tourism sector is its

seasonality, especially the generalised hiring of staff on permanent seasonal

employment contracts (the tourism-oriented employment arrangement called

“contratación fija discontinua” allowing for open-ended employment contracts with

seasonal downtime).

For this reason future labour reform will bring in support measures for prolonging the

activity period of workers on permanent seasonal contracts in the sectors of tourism,

tourism-linked trade and the hotel trade, favouring deseasonalisation by applying a

social security rebate to any permanent seasonal contracts that begin or are

maintained in the months of March and/or November.

At the time of finishing the writing of this Plan, the Bill of urgent labour market reform

measures was passing through parliament. The lower house (Congreso de los

Diputados) has approved a transitional amendment incorporating a new additional

provision: “Support measures for prolonging the activity period of workers on

permanent seasonal contracts in the sectors of tourism, tourism-linked trade and the

hotel trade”.

B.- Amendment of the Coastal Law (Ley de Costas)

The current Ley de Costas defines a public domain area with special restrictions on

private property. The objective of the Ley is to make the whole coastline accessible to


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the general public and defend it from excessive development and erosion,

guaranteeing also the necessary legal security for those affected.

Blending in the Ley’s objective with tourism use respecting the rights of citizens and

the sustainability of Spain’s coasts calls for a reform of same to bring out the full value

of the coastline. This will have a threefold approach:

1. Protection of the legitimate rights of house-owners: urgent review and

amendment of the Ley de Costas to protect the legitimate rights of the owners

of houses or small plots in coastal areas that do not involve a negative impact

on the coastal environment.

2. Other uses of beaches and coastal zones: beach bars on Spanish coasts

tend to lower the image of quality and equity. To solve this problem minimum

building and service criteria will be laid down for awarding contracts, product

pricing and type approval of the beach bars.

3. One-off beach use: another of the aspects to be considered in this integral

planning of the Spanish coastline is the possibility of using certain zones of

the terrestrial-maritime public domain by entering into agreements with the

Coastal Board (Dirección General de Costas) for holding certain tourism-

related events of general interest.

Work is underway on collaboration with the Secretaría de Estado de Medio Ambiente

to promote the following measures:

1. Increase use concessions for the coastal public domain beyond 30 years and

study mortgage possibilities. Concessionaires will also be made “co-liable” for

conserving the site where they carry out their activity.

2. Remove bureaucratic restrictions on modernisation work on buildings and

facilities set in easement areas of transit and protection, maintaining the

prohibition of increasing the built volume.

3. In collaboration with affected councils, implement standardisation plans for

all beach bars and other facilities existing in each municipal district.

4. Rethink measures so that, in agreement with MAGRAMA, an integral

planning of the whole Spanish coastline is carried out.


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C.- Amendment of the Intellectual Property Law

The Intellectual Property Law (Ley de Propiedad Intelectual) (current revised text

approved by Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996 of 12 April) lays down the conditions for

using works covered by intellectual property rights, such as the public communication

of these works. Exercising rights corresponds solely to the author or tenure holder of

the work or service in question, although in Spain and in all comparable countries

these rights are managed by legally constituted organisations on the account and in

the interest of a set of authors or other holders of intellectual property rights.

The sector recognises the importance of establishing an efficient system for

protecting intellectual property rights and supports the following:

The establishment of well-balanced agreements with the management

organisations,

Bringing to a wider audience the implications of these rights and their

management system on sector services.

Promoting those initiatives that facilitate an effective system encouraging the

highest possible degree of obligation compliance by users of the tourism

sector.

Nonetheless, the right balance has to be struck between the interests of the sectors

using intellectual property rights (including the accommodation/hotel sector) and the

rights management organisations. The same goes for the new draft Intellectual

Property Law, whose main objectives will be to achieve a regulatory system duly

based on the new features of the digital era and set up a framework of legal security.

Within the framework of these objectives, an intellectual property regulation will be

sought that respects the interests of all stakeholders and advocates transparency and

efficacy in rights management while fully meeting all the needs of the twenty first

century.

D.- Amendment of the Urban Leasehold Law

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the use of private tourism

accommodation (15.9% increase in Spain of non-resident tourists lodging in rented

dwellings in 2011). (IET, 2011)

Nonetheless, the use of unregulated accommodation might be abetting situations of

unqualified practice and unfair competition, jeopardising the quality and

competitiveness of the tourism destinations themselves.


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From the legal point of view the Urban Leasehold Law 29/1994 of 24 November (Ley

de Arrendamientos Urbanos: LAU) regulates leasing for uses other than as a

dwelling; nonetheless, it does not deal with the myriad facets of leasing dwellings for

tourism and/or tourism use.

For this reason thought should be given to the amendment of this law in two specific

aspects:

Categorise as tourism leases those that are offered through tourism

marketing channels and/or including complementary hotel-like services

(cleaning and periodical laundry service).

Duration of the contracts: occasional and/or high-turnover leasing for short

periods of time would be the indicator allowing for a better control and

knowledge of the leasing of holiday tourism dwellings. In 2011 the average

stay in leased dwellings of non-resident tourists was 16.7 days. (IET, 2011)

Work is also underway with all regional authorities on maximum possible

harmonisation between them of legislation concerning apartments and tourism

dwellings.

E.- Amendment of the Water Law (Ley de Aguas)

In Spain there is currently a total of nearly 1000 reservoirs controlling the various

catchment areas. These reservoirs were built for domestic supply, irrigation, power

generation and anti-spate flow regulation.

Once the main hydraulic uses have been guaranteed, provision can then be made for

a social and recreational use of the reservoirs so that people can enjoy aquatic

activities, generating revenue for the surrounding area.

In Spain the use of the hydraulic public domain is regulated by Real Decreto

Legislativo 1/2001 of 20 July, approving the revised text of the Ley de Aguas. This act

lays down preferential uses of the hydraulic public domain, including recreational

uses, without any specific mention of tourism use.

The objective of the measures linked to the Ley de Aguas is therefore to facilitate

tourism use of inland water bodies.

To this end the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo considers it necessary to revise the

following aspects of the Ley de Aguas:


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1. Specific inclusion of tourism use of inland water bodies among the provisions

of the Ley.

2. Increase boating areas on rivers and reservoirs, at least for non-motorised

craft.

3. Speed up the bureaucratic processes (authorisation, permits...) allowing

boating and recreational activities on inland water bodies. In 2011 4.8% of

total non-resident tourists coming to Spain practised some sort of nautical

activity. (IET, 2011)

4. Adoption of measures that look out for the safety of users of rivers and

reservoirs.

Bringing the private sector into Turespaña’s decision-making

and financing processes

In a vision of Destination Spain such as that proposed in the PNIT all stakeholders

and resources of the tourism sector, both public and private, are placed at the service

of the tourist. For this reason understanding and integration at all levels (strategic,

tactical and operational) is top priority for underpinning Spain’s competitiveness. The

private sector also calls for a total alignment of the tourism policy objectives with the

needs of the business sector, as well as a better orientation of services and

companies by Turespaña.

The objective of this measure is to promote a formal participation model for private

initiative within Turespaña’s decision-making procedures and activities and also to

weigh up the possibilities of implementing a public-private organisational model.

This participation is allowed for in the PNIT by creating a working group within

CONESTUR to determine the legal nature and financing model that would facilitate

the entry of private financing in Turespaña.

Support for the internationalisation of Spanish tourism firms

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through SEGITTUR, will work towards the

internationalisation of Spain’s tourism SMEs, helping them to find their feet in new

markets and promoting the exportation of their tourism services and products. This

measure will be implemented by tapping into the tourism collaboration agreements


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signed with other countries involving specific action plans. In this endeavour

SEGITTUR will also draw on ICEX and Spain’s embassy network.

SEGITTUR, on the one hand, will pinpoint all possible projects or business

opportunities for public institutions of other countries, with the aim of their being

carried out by Spanish firms. On the other hand Spanish firms will be entitled to call in

SEGITTUR support whenever this is deemed to be important for successfully carrying

through their projects abroad.

The internationalisation of Spanish tourism SMEs will therefore be systematically

sought, helping them to break into new markets and promoting the exportation of their

tourism products and services.

Single window for innovative companies and entrepreneurs

The across-the-board nature of tourism, its strategic importance and its high SME

component mean that it is eligible for a whole host of public aid of various kinds,

covering such aspects as energy efficiency, innovation or renewal of infrastructure,

among others.

There is currently a scattered patchwork of organisations offering financing

instruments. The sheer variety of platforms used for publicising these initiatives

greatly reduces their effect, with the consequent risk that the particular aid package

might not be taken up.

The complexity of the processes for seeking out and applying for add, plus the

process of accounting for eligibility, might put off applicants completely. This holds

especially true for SMEs and entrepreneurs, little acquainted as they are with the

bureaucracy and red tape bound up with application for financing, presentation of

projects, proving eligibility, etc.

There is hence a need for improving the information- and advice-giving arrangements

in the tourism sector. This would spur entrepreneurship and maximise the potential

developments of aid, subsidies and other resources.

A single window would therefore fulfil the dual objective of offering tourism-related

entrepreneurs and companies up to date information on the various public services

available at national and international level: existing grant schemes, aid, loans and

subsidies. It would also provide them with the necessary technical advice and

consultancy for carrying out a business initiative or strengthening the development of

sector companies.


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The beneficiaries of this measure will be mainly natural or legal persons from the

private sector, eligible for any of the aid, programmes and projects launched by the

various organisations at both national and international level. Government authorities

may also be recipients when so stipulated in the aid programme.

Technical support for the single window will be given by SEGITTUR, the overarching

organiser of this scheme.

In the interests of maximising coverage of information- and advice-giving outlets the

single window will comprise several customer attention levels to suit applications

made. Its implementation will therefore involve diverse actions:

Firstly, optimisation of the existing aid portal (Ayudatur) for aid seeking services (with

alerts, document downloads, map, timetable, etc.) including information on institutions

at international level.

As support for this first action a team will be set up within SEGITTUR to provide a

service of support and advice for entrepreneurs and companies. This group of

advisors, besides topping up the information supply, will review the project proposals

that have sought financing and weigh up their eligibility for each particular aid

scheme. It will also give advice on possible financing sources and services for

entrepreneurs, tailored to suit each project.

Additionally, drawing on the knowledge acquired on the various innovation projects,

recommendations can be made to the association of companies for generating a

more competitive idea and increasing its market purchase.

Lastly, once the project has been defined, the single-window team will offer

assistance and support services in presenting applications. The aim of this service is

to support the entrepreneur/employer in checking compliance with requirements and

filling out the documentation.

Along with the above an FAQ will also be set up to answer the most frequently asked

questions that might crop up for the potential entrepreneur: which types of aid exist,

which is the ideal aid in this case, which are the aid eligibility requisites.


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Knowledge

Drawing up the Turespaña Service Catalogue

Turespaña has been carrying out its activity with the aim of providing a service for

Spanish and foreign tourism firms, regional and local public authorities plus travellers

who might wish to know about destination Spain.

As part of its ongoing commitment to the promotion of public-private knowledge and

co-responsibility within the Spanish tourism sector, Turespaña is ready to develop a

new value proposal based on key assets and drawing on its skills and experience

built up during its whole existence.

The main objective of this measure is to draw up a service catalogue to be offered to

the main beneficiaries of Turespaña’s activity: tourism and non-tourism firms, public

authorities, universities and research centres and civil society. These services can be

broken down into two types:

Services linked to promotional campaigns: actions on product lines in

coordination with the private sector and other public authorities.

Requirements will be established for lining up Turespaña’s marketing

strategy with the promotional purpose sought; these requirements will be

binding on all participants. These actions will be carried out by proposing

minimum financial participation in the real variable cost thereof in exchange

for increasing visibility of the destination brand or participating firm.

Knowledge-based services: services will also be designed under IET’s

operational support, based on Turespaña’s knowledge and analysis

capacity. Services to be offered include studies of products such as MICE,

among many others. Some will be free of charge while others with a

greater degree of customisation (live, on-demand modular access to

dynamic market research reports, harnessing Turespaña’s CRM15, etc.)

will be offered for a set price.

As well as the abovementioned objectives it is hoped that the service catalogue will

serve as the central thrust for subsequently designing the internal transformation of

15

Customer Relations Management


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Turespaña, with progressive access to a financing model based on greater revenue

from the services rendered.

The following actions will be carried out in pursuit of the abovementioned objectives:

Identification of the needs of Turespaña beneficiaries: a study will be

conducted of the information or knowledge needs as well as support for

promotional campaigns in line with management of Spain brand. An

identification will also be made of the organisations currently providing

these services to pinpoint niches of opportunity.

Definition of the Turespaña services for each beneficiary: these

services will be set up on the basis of the institution’s skill set, always in

due accordance with its public service remit.

Identify the revenue lines for each service: this will be done in terms of

two criteria, firstly the service value for the beneficiary and secondly the

public utility character.

Transformation of processes, systems and organisation as necessary

for the operation of each service: development of the value proposal will

imply redesigning of Turespaña’s model towards a more market-oriented

form.

Reorganisation and modernisation of the Consejerías de

Turismo de España en el Exterior

The network of Consejerías de Turismo de España en el Exterior (Diplomatic-Mission

Departments of Spanish Tourism Abroad or Spanish Tourism Offices: OET)

represents a strategic asset of the Spanish tourism sector, acting as a interface with

the outbound sector and as antennae in the outbound markets.

The current network suffers from a series of structural shortfalls that can be broken

down into two:

The geographical situation of the consejerías with respect to Turespaña’s

strategy is inadequate: Turespaña’s Strategic Marketing Plan has defined

certain groupings and a market-based positioning (pending the omnibus

study); this does not tally with the current distribution of the consejerías.


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The current consejerías suffer from functional shortfalls in their current

structure in relation to Turespaña’s needs for the new service catalogue.

The staff of the consejerías created up to the nineties (the great majority of

those making up the current network) carry out functions that no longer

meet the sector’s current needs, still based as they are on giving telephone

information to tourists, public attention and the distribution of brochures.

Although the hired personnel has shown a great capacity of adaptation and

motivation, the remuneration structures are not in keeping with the high

level of training necessary for tackling the marketing-management and

information-analysis tasks, including a high ICT takeup.

This Plan envisages a thoroughgoing overhaul of the OETs to reorganise their

geographical distribution and bring them into line with the modernisation criteria as

reflected in the new service catalogue referred to herein.

An account is given below of the actions to be carried out for the analysis, unification

and optimisation of the OETs’ management procedures and services:

Analysis and diagnosis of the current situation of the OETs: in terms of

the value proposal defined in Turespaña’s service catalogue.

Definition of the new model of Consejería and geographical

distribution: the typical consejería structure will be established to meet

pinpointed needs; a proposal will also be made of the geographical

distribution of the objectives of the Strategic Marketing Plan. This proposal

will be sent up to the CONESTUR Working Group as specified above under

“Entrance of the private sector in Turespaña’s decision-making procedures

and financing arrangements” for vetting thereof.

Deployment of the new model.


At the beginning of the nineties, Turespaña introduced new statistical methodologies

to fine-tune the recording of tourism entries across Spain’s borders and also to obtain

new data to improve the design of public policies associated with the sector.


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This rearrangement gave rise to the statistical surveys FRONTUR (Spanish inbound

Tourism Survey, EGATUR (Spanish Tourism Expenditure Survey) and FAMILITUR

(Spanish Domestic and Outbound Tourism Survey); ever since then these surveys

have been drawn up by Turespaña through the Instituto de Estudios turísticos (IET),

in collaboration with other organisations (Instituto Nacional de Estadística and Banco

de España) for the implementation and improvement of statistical series such as the

Tourism Satellite Account.

In this way IET complies with its main remits: research and preparation of statistical

surveys (RD 561/2009) and bringing tourism knowledge and intelligence to a wider

audience.

The present economic circumstances oblige public authorities to look for cost-saving

synergies. The generation and management of the statistical surveys FRONTUR,

EGATUR and FAMILITUR use up a large amount of IET’s resources. The time and

effort spent on the publication of the abovementioned surveys, therefore, necessarily

robs time from IET’s second major remit, the creation of tourism knowledge and

spreading it further afield.

Furthermore, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) is a renowned specialist with

a wealth of experience in statistical surveys. A joint study will therefore be carried out

with INE to ascertain the feasibility of transferring to this organisation, resources

permitting, the remit for generating and managing tourism surveys. This would result

in information of greater recognition and trustworthiness and a reinforcement of its

leadership in these tasks.

The objectives sought with this measure are the following:

Forge closer collaboration relations with the INE in the production of

tourism statistical surveys with the aim of transferring this remit to said

organisation while Turespaña retains its role in the definition of statistical

needs and source access.

Reinforce IET’s leadership as a centre of tourism knowledge, allowing it to

focus its attention on the application of complex techniques (data mining) in

using the powerful data warehouse possessed today. A crucial factor here

is the service catalogue to be offered in this field, duly improved and

brought to wider notice. Turespaña is also guaranteed continuance of its

privileged access to all tourism-related statistical data.

Strengthen tourism-related statistical operations for state purposes,

exploiting available government-run sources, thereby limiting and

rationalising the statistical burden of tourism firms and cutting costs by


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harnessing synergies with the INE and the rest of the tourism statistics

system.

Reduce the costs of drawing up statistical figures.

The development of this measure involves several actions likely to achieve the set

objectives in the mid term.

Firstly, a collaboration agreement has been signed between the presidencies of

Turespaña and INE laying down the procedures, timetables and conditions for

collaboration with INE in preparing the surveys FAMILITUR, FRONTUR and

EGATUR.

Collaboration under this agreement will be carried out under the two following phases:

In the first phase, in 2012, after signing the agreement, such working

groups as are deemed necessary will be set up to carry out such tasks as

may be mutually determined. They will comprise at least the following:

document analysis, checking specifications and all necessary actions.

In the second phase, as from 1 January 2013:

o INE will collaborate in the tasks of debugging, vetting and grossing

up of the data supplied by Turespaña, providing for that purpose its

own human and material resources.

o Turespaña, for its part, will continue to hold responsibility for

fieldwork and distribution of the results, financing the total cost of

the operations with its own resources.

o Turespaña will continue to take on responsibility for distributing the

results, making explicit mention of INE’s collaboration in the

production process.

A joint monitoring committee will be responsible for monitoring activities under the

agreement and establishing specific actions for putting it into effect. It will also clear

up any questions of interpretation that might crop up in carrying out the agreement.

Once concise results are available the conclusions will be passed on to the regional

authorities, interested groups of the private sector, businessmen’s associations,

tourism observatories and tourism experts for analysing these conclusions and

improving the handover strategy.


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Talent and entrepreneurship


Young entrepreneurs are the group best placed at the moment for introduction of

supply-side tourism management innovations. This capacity, however, will be

undermined for as long as Spain entrepreneur’s are closed off from the necessary

funding sources for setting up the seed capital of their businesses and launching their

projects.

This Plan therefore defines a measure that aims to facilitate access to financing

sources, allowing innovation-driven entrepreneurs to set their project in motion.

Innovation is to be understood in its widest sense here, i.e., not restricted solely to

technological aspects but also innovation in products and services or in management

or other groundbreaking ideas.

The budget for the Secretaría de Estado de Turismo includes a new item, available to

young tourism entrepreneurs, namely profit-participating loans on terms better than

market conditions. For this purpose an agreement will be signed between SEGITTUR

and ENISA.

These aid packages remove one of the main obstacles preventing entrepreneurs from

launching their projects, namely the furnishing of guarantees.

Innovative tourism entrepreneurs programme

Spain’s huge wealth of as yet untapped tourism resources represents an unbeatable

business opportunity for groundbreaking entrepreneurs with initiative and a good

knowledge of the necessary management tools.

The main objective of this measure is to identify budding talent in academic circles in

Spain or abroad, pinpointing principally those potential entrepreneurs whose high-

level projects and research, on the strength of their practicality and applicability, can

be put into practice in the tourism business.

This action fits into an architecture of measures that aim to kindle the innovation

capacity of Spain’s tourism industry. The combination of these measures will furnish

companies and entrepreneurs with the necessary tools for successfully carrying

through business plans identified in the seedbeds of young entrepreneurs; thus, both

the single window of support for aid-searches and -applications and the credit facility


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for young entrepreneurs will help to guarantee the attraction and retention of budding

talent in the sector.

This measure will be based on the setting up of a complete cooperation network for

promoting tourism entrepreneurship, especially involving younger entrepreneurs.

Drawing on the potential of existing work networks, Red-Intur, Sictur and ThinkTur,

and increasing their capacity to cater for new organisations, a powerful network

architecture will be set up for maximising the entrance of prestige training centres.

For this purpose agreements will be set up with the most prestigious Spanish

business schools and universities and other organisations with the object of creating

seedbeds of young entrepreneurs that can input forward-looking ideas.

Within these organisations stress will be placed on the training and skills-building of

young tourism entrepreneurs to pinpoint new opportunities and nurture the

development of groundbreaking business models. A grant agreement will be set up

with the Industrial Organisation School (Escuela de Organización Industrial) within the

framework of its tourism-oriented teaching syllabi.

The objectives of this measure include support in the search for information investors

(e.g. business angels), to help in the start-up of innovative tourism firms.

As well the various grant schemes unearthed, a seedbed capital fund will be set up,

budget permitting, to finance the launching of groundbreaking projects presented by

young entrepreneurs. The eligibility criteria for this seedbed capital need to be

established after due vetting and selection of tourism business projects.

To complement and support this initiative a complete communication programme will

be carried out to maximise its scope.

Bringing training into line with business demand

A key factor in ushering the tourism sector towards a knowledge economy is the

availability of a pool of exceptional talent adapted to the new challenges of the sector,

as a crucial capacity in a competitive vision of Destination Spain. Excellence of the

talent depends largely on the quality of the training, how far it answers actual sector

demands and the professional opportunities for attracting the best prepared and

brightest careers.

The Spanish tourism sector has frequently advocated the need of establishing

government measures to improve training, to bring it into line with new career needs.

As well as meeting this challenge training should also bring out certain exceptional

attributes that represent the Spain brand from a systematisation approach.


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The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, will promote the following

measures as touchstones of specific aspects of the training:

Definition of an SME-manager training syllabus with an internationally reputed

school for systematisation and training in customer attention, stressing the

standout attributes of the Spain brand (happiness, conviviality, etc.). Support

for the establishment of a training supply with these attributes with both face-

to-face and online teaching.

Study of the training needs of present and future career profiles for the tourism

sector and identification of the key knowledge areas for the sector over the

coming years. This study will be conducted on the basis of enquiries with

participating firms.

Support for pilot collaboration programmes between training centres and

companies to fill loopholes and gaps in current training arrangements.

PRIORITISATION OF

MEASURES


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The measures laid down in the PNIT have different timeframes, call on different resources or

imply a different degree of dependence on other agents, among other differences between

them.

This heterogeneity requires the establishment of some prioritisation criteria for deciding on

the order in which they should be tackled.

Prioritisation Methodology

Measure prioritisation criteria

First and foremost it is necessary to establish which attributes associated with each

measure will be studied. Two prioritisation criteria have been defined, namely ease of

implementation and the impact of each measure, characterised in turn by a series of

subcriteria.

Ease of implementation:

An evaluation will be made of the degree of deployment difficulty of each measure,

considering the following subcriteria:

The timetabling of each measure: determined by the necessary time for

tackling it completely. The longer the deadline, the less its ease of

implementation.

Complexity: this involves a subjective evaluation of the technical difficulty

of bringing it into effect. The less complex the measure, the easier it is to

implement.

Resource need: quantity and characteristics of the necessary resources

for a correct implementation of the measure. This includes both human

resources (necessary personnel, skills level, time spent on the activity...)

and economic or technological resources. The more implementation

resources needed, the lower its ease of implementation.

Dependence between measures: the degree to which a given measure is

linked to the implementation or completion of other measures. A greater


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dependence on other measures is considered to be a risk factor for

developing it in time and form, reducing its ease of implementation.

Dependence on other agents: degree to which the carrying out of the

measure depends on one or several agents outside the Secretaría de

Estado de Turismo. The requisite of cooperation with other agents or

institutions calls for a higher level of consensus-seeking or participation,

thus lowering its ease of implementation.

The impact of the measure:

This involves an assessment of the capacity of each measure for favouring the tourism

sector in the terms defined by the PNIT, considering the following subcriteria:

Favour a framework of competitiveness: evaluation of the contribution of

the measure to a general improvement of business competitiveness.

Measures whose objective is to increase competition at a macroeconomic

level will be deemed to have a greater impact.

Increase in revenue, cost saving and improving the efficiency and efficacy

of the public sector dealing with tourism-related services: the measure’s

revenue-boosting or cost-cutting potential or the degree to which it

represents improvements in the provision of tourism-related public

services. All measures with this capacity will be deemed to have a greater

impact.

Number of PNIT objectives reinforced: estimate of the number of

objectives directly affected by the measure. Measures conducive to the

achievement of several objectives will therefore have a greater impact.

Payback time: expected time for the measure to begin producing the

desired results. Measures quicker to produce results (calculated as the

start time of the results) will be deemed to have a greater impact.


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Prioritisation Matrix

The measures evaluated on the basis of these criteria are positioned in a prioritisation

matrix that will then serve as a framework for carrying out the Plan. Each matrix quadrant

will have a different meaning:

Priority quadrant:

This quadrant contains the most important measures that

are also most conducive to fulfilment of objectives and

less difficult to tackle. In principle these measures should

be implemented in the short-mid term, since they will soon

start to contribute towards the PNIT objectives.

Strategy quadrant:

As in the priority quadrant, the strategy quadrant contains

the most important and beneficial measures defined within

the Plan. In this case, however, their implementation will

call for a big effort due to the high degree of difficulty.

Rapid improvement quadrant:

This quadrant includes all the measures that, despite

having a lower relative impact, are comparatively easy to

tackle. They can be carried out at any moment.

Continual improvement quadrant:

This last quadrant contains measures that, with a lower

relative impact or high degree of difficulty, have a lower

priority. Implementing them will call for continual effort in a

medium- and long-term timeframe.


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Evaluation of the measures

On the basis of the methodological framework as described above, an evaluation will be

made of each measure for subsequently placing them in the prioritisation matrix.

A description is given below of the main characteristics of the measures in terms of their

ease of implementation and impact.

Measure Ease-of-

implementation factors

Impact factors



Permanent EU representation of Spanish tourism

interests

Launch of the "Fidelización España" programme

Driving a campaign to stimulate national tourism

demand






Smart destinations: innovation in destination

management

Networks of customer experience management

agencies

Standardisation of the rating and categorisation of

hotels, rural accommodation and campsites



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V

Measure Ease-of-

implementation factors

Impact factors

Bringing out the importance of Spain's cultural and

natural heritage, wine and cuisine


Analysis of the impact of all proposed legislation on

the tourism sector

Encouraging market unity


Bringing the private sector into Turespaña's decision-

making and financing processes

Support for the internationalisation of Spain's tourism

firms

Single window for groundbreaking entrepreneurs and

firms

Drawing up the Turespaña Services Catalogue

Reorganisation and modernisation of the Spanish

Consejerías de Turismo abroad




Bringing training and research procedures into line

with business demand


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The prioritisation matrix

It should be pointed out here that all measure assessments have been standardised for

placement in the prioritisation matrix. Thanks to this standardisation all measures will be

distributed throughout the matrix, facilitating their interpretation. For this reason it should

be understood that a measure of lower priority is so regarded only in relation to the other

measures included in the PNIT, not because its priority is lower per se.

The measures are placed below within the prioritisation map in terms of the

abovementioned criteria of ease of implementation and impact.

This map therefore helps to identify the order in which the measures described in the

PNIT should be tackled. These measures, ordered according to the quadrants they

belong to, are the following:


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Priority quadrant



Development of Turespaña’s service catalogue


Analysis of the impact of all proposed legislation on the tourism sector

Launching of the programme "Fidelización España"

Strategy Quadrant


Bringing the private sector into Turespaña's decision-making and financing processes

Support for tourism municipalities

Networks of customer experience management agencies


Reorganisation and modernisation of the Spanish Consejerías de Turismo abroad

Encouraging market unity.

Rapid improvement quadrant




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Permanent EU representation of Spain's tourism interests

Driving a campaign to stimulate national tourism demand


Smart destinations: innovation in destination management



Single window for groundbreaking entrepreneurs and firms

Continual improvement quadrant

Bringing training and research procedures into line with business demand

Standardisation of the rating and categorisation of hotels, rural accommodation and campsites

Support for the internationalisation of Spain's tourism firms


Bringing out the importance of Spain's cultural and natural heritage, wine and cuisine


MONITORING AND

CONTROL


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One of the defining traits of the PNIT is its commitment to operating within a coordinated,

controlled, measurable and transparent strategy.

For this purpose coordination and monitoring mechanisms will be defined to ensure that:

The headway made in the proposed measures can be quantified and evaluated on a

continual basis.

The objectives defined in the PNIT are monitored to keep abreast of the state of each

one at any time.

Their state and progress are known by the public at large.

A description is given below of the elements of coordination, monitoring and control.

Coordination instruments

The plan coordination instruments are those that currently exist, which will now be

tapped into for setting up a dialogue and collaboration forum between sector agents:

CONESTUR, Conferencia Sectorial de Turismo (Sector-Based Tourism Conference) and

the Comisión Interministerial de Turismo (Interministerial Tourism Committee).

A summary is given below of the mission, main functions and composition of these

instruments:


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TYPES OF

ORGANISATIO

N

CONESTUR16

CONFERENCIA SECTORIAL

DE TURISMO17

COMISIÓN INTERMINISTERIAL

DE TURISMO18

OBJECT

Serve as a forum of

dialogue, participation and

collaboration, driving private-

public cooperation

Articulate and solve on a

cooperation principle all questions of

common interest that impinge on the

tourism activity of the central

government and regional authorities

Promote and coordinate the action of

central government services and state

public entities

MAIN

FUNCTIONS

• Issuing reports on criteria and lines of plans and programmes.

• Propose initiatives and actions for promotion abroad and public-private collaboration.

• Draw up sector situation reports (needs and demands).

• Bring analysis and studies to a wide audience.

• Exchange points of view and debating actions of a general character.

• Debate draft legislation. • Swap experiences associated with

the respective public policies. • Integrate criteria of the regional

authorities in state plans. • Draw up collaboration agreements

favouring the vitality and rationalisation of cooperation instruments.

• Coordinate the actions of the various ministerial departments and organisations of the central government.

• Study and formulate integral tourism action plans and proposals.

• Report and give opinions on tourism-impacting projects and proposals of national scope.

COMPOSITION

• Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Turismo

• Regional authorities (Comunidades Autónomas)

• Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias

• Chambers of commerce • Trade Unions • Employers’ organisations • Sector businessmen,

experts and professionals


• Regional authorities (Comunidades Autónomas)


• Other ministries of the central government

BODIES Plenum / Committee / Working groups

Plenum / Round Table of Directors / Working groups

Plenum / Standing Committee / Working groups

16 REAL DECRETO 719/2005, de 20 de junio, por el que se crea el Consejo Español de Turismo. (ROYAL DECREE 719/2005

of 20 June creating the Spanish Tourism Council

17 Reglamentos de las Conferencias Sectoriales, Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas. (Regulations of the

Sector-Based Conferences. Ministry of Finance and Liaison between Government Levels)

18 Real Decreto 6/1994, de 14 de enero, por el que se crea la Comisión Interministerial de Turismo (Royal Decree 6/1994 of 14

January creating the Interministerial Tourism Committee and Real Decreto 418/2012 of 24 February amending Real Decreto

6/1994, de 14 de enero, por el que se crea la Comisión Interministerial de Turismo.


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Monitoring and control

The Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, through Turespaña, will provide the necessary

tools and resources for monitoring and control of the PNIT. These functions will be

tackled in two phases:

Phase 1: A management plan defining the operational model plus the various plan-

monitoring tools and indicators.

Indicators will be broken down into three levels:

Impact indicators: designed to gauge the trend of the various fields within the

Spanish tourism sector. These indicators answer objective-monitoring needs,

defined from a macroeconomic perspective.

Results indicators: these evaluate the milestone feats achieved by the

measures.

Execution indicators: variables for studying the degree to which the measures

have been carried out. These indicators monitor the degree of measure

implementation.

A definition will also be made of the following PNIT control and monitoring tools:

A dashboard for continuous monitoring of the state of the plan from the most

strategic perspective.

A measure monitoring panel, a tool ensuring more operational control of the plan

by means of results and execution indicators.

Phase 2: Setting up a plan control and monitoring office for as long as the plan remains

in force, as a tool of same rather than an administrative unit. Its main functions will be

use and working up of the data and drawing up reports on the progress of the Plan.

Information compiled on the situation and forecasts of the PNIT will be communicated to

the various coordination organisations in terms of the remit of each one.


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CONESTUR, as the organisation with the widest-ranging representation within Spain’s

tourism sector, will be the tourism sector coordination instrument and reporting body of

the overall monitoring of plan objectives and measures. The Executive Committee, due

to its working procedure, will be PNIT’s general liaison body.

The Ministerio de Fomento (Ministry of Public Works), through the National Geographical

Institute (Instituto Geográfico Nacional), will be able to draw up specific instruments for

supporting the coordination, control and monitoring of the PNIT satisfying the needs of

geographical information, tourism cartography and statistical cartography based on these

indicators. It will also be able to design geographical information systems that provide for

an efficient management, dissemination and geographical distribution of the recourses

developed or incentivised under this Plan and, especially, as support for the Monitoring

and Control Office to be set up in phase 2.

ANNEX


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PNIT inputs

In these execution phases the PNIT was presented to the regional authorities through the

Mesa de Directores Generales (2 March 2012) and the Conferencia Sectorial (12 March

2012); to the tourism sector as a whole as represented in the Consejo Español de Turismo

(CONESTUR) (17 April 2012) and to the ministerial departments on the Comisión

Interministerial (7 May 2012).

During this process a communication channel was opened for all the abovementioned agents

to make their own inputs and express their specific needs, which were then taken to account

in drawing up the PNIT.

As a result of this exchange of views, about two hundred inputs were received from public

and private bodies, trade unions and employers’ organisations.

The table below sums up the main participating agents or institutions; the Secretaría de

Estado de Turismo would like to thank them all for their contributions.

Agents Number of inputs

Regional authorities. 68

CEHAT 1

CEOE 43

Ministerial Departments 8

EXCELTUR 10

FECOHT - CCOO 30

FEMP 20

Mesa del Turismo 1

Others 20

TOTAL 201

Written by:

Secretaría de Estado de Turismo

Instituto de Turismo de España (Turespaña)

Documents

National and Integral Tourism Plan - Turespaña Vision Destino Espaa/Nation… · Plan Nacional e Integral de Turismo 2012-2015 5 Foreword Spain is the world’s leading tourism country