/ Interview with Mr. Ignasi de Delàs, President of European Cities Marketing

Mr. de Delàs is the President of European Cities Marketing since June 2013 and is also Deputy General Manager of Turisme de Barcelona. European Cities Marketing is a platform for convention, leisure and city marketing professionals to exchange knowledge, best practice and widen their network to perform even better. HOTREC asked Mr. de Delàs three questions about the role of ECM’s role in destination marketing, its vision for the collaborative economy and platform’s cooperation on the collaborative economy. In a challenging context for tourism in Europe, could you briefly introduce the evolving role of destination marketing agencies in promoting an even more attractive Europe?Indeed, DMOs are facing new challenges. The need to strategize their future and their own existence is real. It’s tough when markets change and you and your organisation don’t. The nowadays law of the global economy is easy: adapt or die. Logically, we often ask ourselves as DMOs: What about tomorrow? Will there still be a role to play? We need to find and rethink our scope. Destination promotion now happens through destination stories told by many that are a direct result of the destination experience. DMOs should undercover their place DNA, and then brand their destination accordingly. That’s why some DMOs are considering turning into DMMOs (Destination Marketing Management Organisations) to keep up with the tourism trends. The goals that DMOs have historically pursued now threaten their future relevance and even existence. We must shift resources from marketing to management in order to balance the interests and benefits of tourism with those of the local communities we serve. DMOs are the only organisations within a city structure that have the capabilities, capacities and funding to focus on developing and managing the experiential quality of a city and consequently promote an even more attractive Europe. At the ECM International Conference in Dubrovnik, May 31-June 3, 2017, ECM members (Europe’s city marketers and tourism professionals) will meet industry thought leaders and leading tourism academics to pursue this discussion and debate and strategise the new normal in urban travel. The exponential development of the collaborative economy, which can be seen as an opportunity for European cities, is also generating a set of drawbacks in many aspects of cities everyday life (e.g. urban planning, cost of housing and living, unfair competition with the existing tourism eco-system and in particular with hospitality businesses). Can you explain how DMOs act in order to reconcile these two aspects and transform it into an opportunity? The sharing economy is indeed the fastest growing segment in tourism, estimated to represent 50% of all travellers by 2025, expecting to equal traditional rental economy’s revenue growth. On the bright side, the real sharing economy is a great way for visitors to engage with the locals – to get the real and authentic city experience delivered by real people, living real lives. The connected economy has been praised as a value based consumer movement to end materialism and meaningless consumption in favour of people-to-people collaboration, sustainable living and pursuit of authentic social relations. Like you said, on the other hand, it has been strongly criticised for being just the opposite: nothing but big business tagged with all of the well familiar immoralities of full blown capitalism - tax evasion, violation of labour rights and consumer protection laws to name a few. It also has had negative impact on some local neighbourhoods in Europe’s great cities in terms of everyday visitor pressure, gentrification, crowding out of local life and driving up the cost of shopping and renting an apartment for local citizens. At our last ECM Annual Meeting in Madeira in 2016, ECM members collectively asked sharing economy influential bodies to play with and respect local rules to maintain a fair-play attitude, rationalise, legalize and facilitate growth of the sector. The hospitality sector being a major contributor to the economic and social life of European cities, how do you see the cooperation of peer-to-peer platforms in order to foster a responsible and sustainable collaborative economy? The big question for our DMOs is not whether to be pro or con the sharing economy. It is how destinations can actively interact with, simply because this phenomenon is here to stay. We issued in June 2016 a "Discussion paper on Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) and the sharing economy” produced by Toposophy that many can relate to. Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) in general are the connectors between industry players and authorities; they are the stage managers of their city. And for our members DMOs, it is a crucial need to balance the interest of their established partners with the popularity of the new collaborative platforms. To promote a sustainable collaborative economy, we urge peer-to-peer platforms to do their utmost to play with local rules in order to make the pie bigger i.e. increase the total number of visitors to some destinations, attracted by what sharing economy platforms offer there. However, up to now, the growth of the tourism sharing economy has largely happened with engagement of every other stakeholder group except governmental authorities. If managed properly, the sharing economy can be a tool that can prove highly cost effective, enrich the experience of visitors, provide opportunities for deeper citizen engagement and offer considerable rewards on environmental impact too.