At 10.00h (CEST) the event began with Mª Ángeles Ferre, head of the scientific-technical programme subdivision of the State Research Agency, together with Juan Molas, president of ITH and of the Tourism Board. Both sent out a message of optimism and hope for the sector, bearing in mind that innovation will help us to move forward, to position the sector where it deserves to be, and above all, to overcome that uncertainty after this "fateful stage". Furthermore, they stressed the need for public-private collaboration in the framework of European aid for the recovery of tourism, recognising the significant role of Spanish technological platforms.

Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, Director General of ITH and Thinktur, then went on to explain the initiatives that have been carried out by the platform over the last year, including the publication of a new version of the Strategic Agenda for Tourism R&D&I; the preparation of the "Tourism Intelligence System" ebook, and participation in inter-platform groups such as the circular economy, intelligent cities, and big data and artificial intelligence, as well as collaboration with different important tourism events. To conclude, he also showed the projects that he will tackle in 2021.

Carrillo de Albornoz also highlighted the ITH Model of Sustainable Tourism; the project in which ITH together with SEGITTUR have worked to alleviate the effects of Thomas Cook's bankruptcy on Spanish destinations; the European NTG project which aims to define the skills required in all positions in the tourism sector; and finally, the project to study the visibility of the implementation of robotics, to study those hotel processes where robotics can improve profitability and efficiency, as well as the confidence and image of customers and employees in hotels.

This was followed by the 7th Thinktur Technology Transfer, a panel of short presentations in which innovative solutions were shown that will help tourism companies and organisations to improve their competitiveness and strengthen tourism. The participants were as follows:

- Jorge Portillo, CEO of GreeMko, told us that his company offers an SaaS management and mobility solution to calculate and manage the environmental and carbon footprint, aimed at all types of entities regardless of their size and activity.

- Antonio Tapia, CEO of HotelDataFlow, explained how they implement Artificial Intelligence applied to Hotel Upselling, Financial Management System for the Hotel Sector, and a 360º RMS incorporating Predictive Machine Learning for Forecasting.

- Teresa de Pablo, Sales Manager for Spain at hotelkit showed how they manage the digitalisation of the hotel's daily operations and internal communication.

- Francisco Javier Gómez, Co-founder of PayThunder, who explained the PayThunder tourism platform, linked to the rechargeable citizen's bank card (VISA/Mastercard) that allows payment at any POS in the world with this tourist card that can also be virtualised on the mobile phone to pay and be recharged from the citizen's APP.

- Óscar Izquierdo, COO of QUESTRAVEL, explained how, thanks to Artificial Intelligence and APIS integration with the main providers, they manage to answer 8,000 questions free of charge and are fed by the users during their journey. They save time and money when applying for new services while travelling, and obtain profitability thanks to their preferential agreements. They are a Professional Travel Concierge in a single PPP.

- Eloy Calatayud, managing partner of Wireless Galicia, presented iViewPoint, a technological product for the promotion of destinations through the enhancement of their viewpoints. A technological overview table allows visitors to recognise the visible resources and access from their mobile phones (Web, QR or NFC) to content from the most outstanding heritage or natural resources through text and multimedia content, encouraging them to share the experience on their social networks.

After "the bets on tourism by Thinktur", the round table discussion "transforming tourism for the fight against uncertainty" moderated by Victor Badorrey, director of institutional relations at SEGITTUR, took place: Héctor Coronel, Director of Tourism of Madrid Destino, who explained the importance of reactivating the flow of tourism at a national and international level in order to recover activity and normality, and also referred to the "importance of the sum of all the sectors for a better recovery"; Yolanda de Aguilar, Director General of Foro Transfiere and FYCMA, who stated "more than ever we have to be innovative leaders, with a lot of vision, and dedicate time and work to creativity". She also highlighted the importance of face-to-face events, since, as she said, "digital tools will be a complement but not a substitute for face-to-face events".

Juan Serra, General Manager of Ayre Hoteles and Only YOU Hotels also took part in this debate. Serra mentioned the importance of taking advantage of changes to turn them into opportunities, and raised a reflection on how hotels can have a better social impact on the environment around us. For his part, José Serrano, CEO of IZO Spain, addressed the issue of the need to adapt to the consumer, and therefore the importance of "knowing how to listen, measure and analyse the voice of the customer on a constant basis, with the appropriate methodology and tools". He concluded by stressing that "companies need to be more agile in order to adapt to new customer needs".

At the end of the debate, José Guillermo Díaz-Montañés, President of Thinktur, closed the annual assembly by thanking all the members of the platform for their work during a complicated year. He made it clear that Thinktur makes "more sense than ever, since sharing knowledge is a fantastic lever for transforming uncertainty into opportunities", and assured that "2021 will be a year of optimism, where we will once again be a strong, resilient and competitive industry".

- You can download the images of the event at the following link: https://ithotelero.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aa0513481bc646da5503e591e&id=fd8d50d5fd&e=9ce919722f
- You can watch the recording of the assembly on our Youtube channel: https://ithotelero.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aa0513481bc646da5503e591e&id=2d1efbf1cc&e=9ce919722f
- You can download the Strategic Agenda for R+D+i in tourism here: https://www.thinktur.org/agenda-estrategica/