Held on 10 and 11 December 2020 as a mixed physical and virtual event, the latest edition of TOURISMATCH offered an enriching opportunity for the tourism industry stakeholders to explore solutions for more resilient business models compatible with new tourism business challenges.
Tourismatch 2020, took place as a parallel activity to the International Tourism Forum in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria titled “Challenges of the Tourism Industry” and brought together 131 companies, universities, research organisations and public administration representatives from across Europe and worldwide.
This matchmaking event was organised in the framework of the Enterprise Europe Network by Instituto Tecnológico de Canarias in close collaboration with other local agents and served as a unique opportunity to generate new contacts for business, technical co-operation and research and development. The matchmaking event was proven to be a quick and easy way to meet potential cooperation partners, in two days of pre-arranged face-to-face/ virtual bilateral meetings (B2B) between start-ups, companies, universities, public and private research centres.
The objective of the event was to look for innovative solutions to reinforce the tourism sector throughout its value chain in order to be prepared for the future. The event offered a variety of advantages for the participating entities including exchanging experiences with other tourism players, extending their networks, creating new, innovative business models and finding business partners among others.
The participating registrants could attend the event physically or virtually and dive into a speed-dating session each lasting 20 minutes, what was considered to be crucial for first impressions and building initial connections. The scope of this matchmaking event was broad enough to be able to welcome representatives of various aspects of tourism, such as ICT solutions, food and beverage, sustainable tourism, circular economy, environment and energy, transport and logistics and more.
The TOURISME project representatives were attending the event, too, virtually though and the project idea was proven to be attractive to many stakeholders along the tourism value chain as it drew attention from various SMEs and other entities and requests for bilateral meetings.
