WTCF is based in Beijing and has successfully brought together more than 160 cities from around the world. Most of them are first of all interested in attracting more Chinese visitors to their destination. However, WTCF is defining itself as a global organisation, publishing surveys about global city tourism. In recent years, WTCF has nevertheless also sponsored China-related activities at ITB Berlin. PROF M has been a member of the WTCF Expert Committee since 2017. From 2026, the Meaningful Tourism Centre will become a member of WTCF.
The conference in Marbella was given the title “Smart Visions for the Future: Reshaping High-End Tourism”, with AI playing an important role in all discussions. More than 30 Chinese delegates arrived from China on the Costa del Sol, together with about ten representatives from different cities, from Brussels to Tbilisi and from Thessaloniki to, of course, Malaga and Marbella. Your humble editor, as a member of the Experts Committee of WTCF, took part in a panel discussion chaired by Prof. Karl Wöber (Vienna/Austria) about how Technology can empower All-season Operations in High-End tourism.
The participants all agreed that AI offers both opportunities and threats at the same time. Some Chinese participants provided a very real example by using translation apps on their smartphones to speak in English with immediate automatic translation into English.
PROF M, of course, pointed out that the need for a holistic development of tourism also includes the integration of AI into the KPIs for all six main stakeholders. The need for SMART KPIs to make developments more transparent and result-oriented was also supported by several panellists, including Patrick Bonfinck, CEO of Visit. Brussels and also Vice President of the City Destinations Alliance (CityDNA), the most important knowledge-sharing network for cities and urban regions in Europe.
In addition to the official program, a meeting of the WTCF Expert Commission took place, concentrating on the question of how Beijing can attract more international visitors. Fortunately, the air pollution has been greatly reduced and Beijing is much greener than it was a decade ago. However, this image has not been successfully distributed to potential travellers, especially potential repeat visitors.
Mayte Redondo, the Certified Trainer for Meaningful Tourism for Spain, had also been kindly invited by WTCF and shared the results of an ad-hoc research among Spanish tourism experts. The result confirmed again that there is in many European minds still an image of the “authentic” China, which is rather a farmer’s boy with a water buffalo than a modern megacity like Beijing.
The expert committee members Tylon Tong, Vice President of Fliggy, the travel arm of Alibaba, and Tokumura Shisei of the Hangzhou Normal University, also confirmed that there is a need to develop customised special interest offers for international visitors and to create new distribution channels outside the traditional tour operator relations as well as paying more attention to the training and consequently service quality skills of the staff working in tourism and hospitality.
In all discussions, the term “meaningful” appeared again and again; however, there is still a lot of work to do to move to “Meaningful” with a capital M.