SalouCongress brings together national and international experts to discuss tourism and innovation

Salou. Costa Dorada. 01 November 2023. Promoted by the Salou City Council, with the support of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Spanish government, the second edition of SalouCongress will be held on November 10, 2023, an event dedicated to innovation in the tourism sector. The title of the conference is "Tourist Environments: engine of technological innovation and industrial growth" and will be held at the Teatro Auditorio de Salou (TAS).

Various international experts will speak during the SalouCongress such as Jafar Jafari, professor of Accommodation and Tourism at the University of Wisconsin-Stout; Anna Navarro Schlegel, vice president of Procore Technologies in Silicon Valley, or Mohammad Sharifi-Tehran, doctor in Business Management and Tourism Management from Allameh Tabataba'i University in Iran.

In the morning, the debate will focus on talent, innovation and technology as levers for the transformation of a smart tourist destination, and will feature the participation of:

• Oriol Rius, specialist in Industry 4.0;
• Iolanda Triviño, talent transformation expert and CEO of Institute for Futures;
• Ángel Díaz, director of Advanced Leisure Services and expert in tourism destination management through innovation;
• Sonia Serracarbassa, director of the Catalunya Convention Bureau;
• Sergi Novo from the ICT Cluster Catalunya Sud, and
• José Antonio Ruiz Pérez, director of innovation and business at Ibercaja.

Climate change and how technology and strategy are key to efficient water management will be the axis around which the afternoon's interventions will take place:

• Sergi Artigas, director of innovation strategy at Leitat Technological Center;
• Saül Bofarull Puig, president of the Port Authority of Tarragona;
• David Martí Gall, Territorial Manager Camp Tarragona – Ebro · AGBAR;
• Santi Castellà, subdelegate of the Spanish Government in Tarragona; and
• Juan Manuel Benítez, dean of the Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

In the presentation of the second SalouCongress, the mayor of Salou, Pere Granados, has defined this congress, together with the action of the municipal government, as a sum of synergies with the desire to consolidate Salou as an intelligent and sustainable municipality, with sustainability understood from the economic and social point of view. In this sense, "the congress will help us, because it means talent, not only in recruiting, but also in retaining what is produced in our home and in our territory."

For her part, Iolanda Triviño, president of the 22@ Network Talent Commission and president of the SalouCongress organization, has stated that the main objective is to articulate "a platform that ends up becoming a talent hub, decisively betting on innovation and technology, a fact that will enhance the attraction of talent from here and abroad".

Finally, Yeray Moreno, Councilor for Economic Management of the Salou City Council and driver and moderator of the SalouCongress, explained that "Salou is an engine of tourism and territorial innovation", and for this reason "from the City Council we are committed to creating a favorable environment , with digital structures, to turn Salou into a pole of attraction for startups." In this sense, he recalled that Salou is working to consolidate itself as a destination 365 days a year.

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