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Expert emphasizes growing importance of cities in tourism sector

Xinhua, December 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

The president of Exceltur, Amancio Lopez, emphasized on Thursday in a conference at the IESE Business School the growing importance of cities as a destination for tourists.

"They can be even more important than the states themselves", the president of Exceltur, the association that encompasses big companies of the sector in Spain, said during his talk at the 4th Tourism Summit held at the IESE Business School in the Mediterranean city of Barcelona.

According to him, the importance of cities shows the growing trend of urban tourism as opposed to sun and beach tourism, a transition that was accompanied by the process of globalization and the emergence of new technologies.

Both processes resulted in an increased access to travels, as cities started competing as well as companies, low cost was born and the number of flights increased with prices falling.

On the other hand, new technologies have promoted travels among the youngest, who are increasingly eager to travel.

Thanks to tourism, cities such as Barcelona are a point of attraction for investments that boost job creation, he said.

"There is an opportunity to introduce reforms, because then, when there are big crises it is impossible to carry out the reforms", he told reporters, pointing out that these reforms could be fiscal incentives to boost job creation and investments in infrastructure.

Meanwhile, he also pointed out security as a challenge for the sector. "Obviously, what happened in Paris, these kinds of things have consequences", he told reporters, pointing out that it would have a "temporary impact if it is an isolated fact".

The 4th Tourism Summit is an event that gathered experts and workers of the sector from around the world to discuss the current situation, the trends and future of tourism. It was organized by the IESE Business School in collaboration with the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. Endit