The indisputable leadership of the Balearic Islands in knowledge of tourism, together with commitments such as Turistec (ICT-Tourism cluster with which we are associated and which is chaired by the CEO and co-founder of our group, Jaume Monserrat) to turn the islands into the benchmark for the technology that the tourism industry needs in the 21st century, places our autonomous community at the epicentre of an entire business ecosystem. The largest concentration of hotel companies created in Mallorca and now are expanded around the world, the most active technology providers in the development of products and services for tourism (both multinationals and family businesses), specialists in innovation, ultra-professional brands and experts in catering, travel, transport, etc. operate in and from this island territory.

However, in all those organisations that come to mind when we think of the economic and development engine they represent, women play as important a role as they are little recognised. Betting on its visibility is a UN commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDS), and the main motivation of the 1st Woman and Tourism congress held at the CaixaForum in Palma (Mallorca). The capacity of its auditorium was filled to listen to some of the women with managerial responsibilities in the activity that moves our economy. All of them shared their experiences, opinions and suggestions to improve female leadership.

The congress was opened by the acting Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel Oliver, who defended equality as “a challenge worth fighting for”, pointing out that companies have to understand that it “is profitable and competitive”.

Hotel sector, technology, trends and complementary offer

The event was organized around four thematic blocks, each and every one of them with some of the most prominent female personal names in positions of responsibility. You can access the complete list of participants and the summary of the congress through Turistec, clicking here…

  • I Congreso Mujer y Turismo
  • I Congreso Mujer y Turismo
  • I Congreso Mujer y Turismo

Hitt Group was represented by Dingus’ Business Development Manager, Paula Servera, and Etoolinnovation Director-General, Carmen Guerrero, who were invited to the trend and technology panels, respectively. They both agreed that “adaptability can be the great asset in environments as dynamic as tourism technology companies”. In this sense, Guerrero stressed that “as I am an biologist, the adaptation phase in the ICT environment consisted of learning to speak (and understand) the language of computing and programming. But when that happened, when we found a way to understand each other in the team, everything else clicked by itself”.

For Servera, gender barriers are only overcome with empathy (on both sides), and work, since capabilities and merit depend on people rather than on their condition”. Both also demanded, together with the rest of the speakers, training in accordance with the needs of the market, “especially in the technology sector, where there is simply a lack of women and men to face the projects in progress”.