Nabil Elshafaey is the CEO and founder of StayTick, a company whose name is worth keeping. “A subscription-based booking site. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the platform knows your tastes better than you do,” he boasted at the ABC and Segittur forum: “The impact of digital transformation on destinations and tourism businesses.” In other words: “The Netflix of accommodation,” which aims to “change the idea of how people search for a destination.”
Its initial idea is to take the content generated by any hotel and that of other sources such as Google or Booking and, thanks to the algorithm, present it to the user in a much more current way. Let me tell you, for example, what are the best options if you are looking for a hotel in Paris, with a room of 20 square meters, four stars and a view of the Eiffel Tower. HASsave time, now that we have less and less of it.
Elshafaey explained that another advantage of his company is that it gives greater visibility to hostings that are more hidden on the Internet or on large platforms because they do not invest in marketing or because they are very small. And in conclusion, he added: “You don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to create cutting-edge technology.”
For his part, César Urbina is the creative director of Iralta, a project to discover destinations from a bird’s eye view. “As a child”, Urbina “dreamed of flying” and now, thanks to virtual reality, destinations can be discovered in a different way thanks to a 3D generated image.
This producer will install an immersive room in Madrid so people can see Spain from the airwhich would otherwise not be possible, and to this flight experience will be added a narration that will tell things about the place you are visiting in virtual reality.
Both StayTick and Iralta have benefited from support from the European Fund for the Digitalisation of Tourism Businesses and have appreciated the contributions of the Last Mile programme, which has enabled them to “realise their dreams”.
“More than competing” between destinations, it is about “complementing each other, being a team”
Rubén Zapardiel, mayor of Oropesa, acknowledged that “we are going to try to copy Toledo” and Juan José Alcalde, deputy mayor of the regional capital, responded that “Toledo is not for sale”. And Javier Muñoz-Gallego, city councilor of Talavera, added that “more than competing” between destinations, it is about “complementing each other, teaming up in the territory”. Well, that’s right. And everyone appreciated the capital importance of the funds received from the Smart Destinations Platform.
Zapardiel assured that “we are prepared for anything that may happen”, citing as an example the Medieval Days, one of the most important in Spain, where “we are surprised by our capacity”. He also advocates for “creating the need”, to give “real-time information” to the tourist who tells him “that there is a concert tonight or that the restaurant is closed for rest”.
For his part, the mayor stressed that in Toledo “we intend to facilitate the tourist’s visit: that he knows what he can do before coming, that he has information points through touch screens.” He also insisted on diversification and, in this sense, one of the ideas is to “highlighting” the Roman circuswhich is “the second largest monument in the world and the least known in Toledo.”
Finally, the mayor of Talavera spoke of the “wow effect” because everyone who visits the town “is surprised”, acknowledging that there is “a pending task of valuing everything we have to offer”.
