Minister Reyes Maroto presents DATAESTUR - a single showcase for tourism data

Reyes Maroto presented the single site for national tourism data - DATAESTUR - together with the President of SEGITTUR, Enrique Martínez, where users can access figures from different sources of information.

"Public managers will be able to use the best tourism policies if they have access to the right data", said Reyes Maroto, stressing the threefold purpose of these actions: "To generate better public knowledge of the main tourism figures, to identify the public and private sources that may be of use in better understanding the sector and taking decisions in this regard, and to design a production and access system to the data tied into the management of public problems at destinations", added the minister.

The web site starts off with public data on tourism from such traditional sources as the National Statistics Institute, the Bank of Spain, AENA, Ports of Spain and Turespaña, among others, which will be updated as the official sources are.

Structure of the data

The data will be structured into five categories: general data - arrivals of inbound tourists; the economy - tourist spending, contribution to GDP, jobs; transport - airline passengers, passenger traffic through ports, by train and on highways; and accommodation - hotel occupation, accommodation prices; and knowledge - active listening, SICTUR and scientific tourism journals.

Private data will be included in addition to public data, in this case from the telephony operator Telefónica.

This initiative forms part of a more ambitious project in which the analysis of data constitutes the basis for improving knowledge of tourists, while contributing to increase Spain's competitiveness as a tourist destination.

In this context of the data, an area of knowledge has been set up to publish reports on active listening, with information on what is being said in the social media about Spain as a tourist destination, together with the interests tourists have when travelling to Spain, information which will be very useful to ensure that destination managers are more aware of the conduct of tourists in the network on the different stages of their travels.

"The power of data - key to knowledge"

Prior to the presentation of DATAESTUR, a round-table was held entitled "The power of data - key to knowledge", involving the participation of the State Secretary for Tourism, Fernando Valdés; the President of the National Statistics Institute, Juan Manuel Rodríguez; the Head of Industry Affairs, European Union, of Amadeus, Juan Jesús García, and the expert journalist in data of El País, Kiko Llaneras, moderated by Eduardo Parra, Professor in Digital Economy and Tourism of La Laguna University.

The State Secretary for Tourism underlined that data management will become a fundamental element that will allow Spain to acquire a competitive edge over other destinations. That is why the Plan to Modernise the Tourism Sector, which will be financed with European funds, makes a decisive commitment to the digitalisation of our tourism companies and destinations with an investment of 355 million euros. Fernando Valdés mentioned the "unique opportunity" opened up by the data economy to create new jobs throughout the country and to develop the digital skills of today's workers.

The President of the INE explained that work is being done on new statistics for tourism adapted to new times, which will incorporate data from mobile phones, bank cards and web scraping. Juan Manuel Rodríguez pointed to the importance of using data that are broken down further and updated more frequently.

For Juan Jesús García, "isolated data are of no value. To make them smart, an analysis must be made that helps enhance decision-making". For his part, the journalist Kiko Llaneras stressed the importance of breaking down data, "since this make the analysis more powerful and is of greater interest to the public".

Non official translation