Tech Tourism Catalonia Visit to Scotland Part 1

The Traveltech for Scotland team was delighted to host a delegation visit to Scotland in late June 2022 from the recently launched Tech Tourism Catalonia cluster.

Businesses from the Tech Tourism Catalonia cluster, together with representatives from both the Catalan Government ACCIO cluster team and the National Tourism Directorate travelled from Catalonia first to London, to attend the Travel Tech Show, then continued to Edinburgh to spend two days with the Traveltech for Scotland community and industry partners.

The Catalan traveltech cluster visit offered the opportunity for Traveltech for Scotland to host its first major in-person event since launching in August 2020.

Shared Objectives and Challenges

On Day One, Thursday 30 June 2022, both groups came together at the Bayes Centre, University of Edinburgh, for a day of knowledge exchange, presentations and business pitches, followed by an industry networking lunch.

The day started with a welcome from Lesley Judge, Project Manager of Traveltech for Scotland, and an introduction to the Traveltech for Scotland cluster and community from Director Josh Ryan-Saha. We then heard from Aileen Lamb, Manager for Tourism and the Creative Economy, Scottish Enterprise, on the evolution of cluster programmes in Scotland and how despite launching during a pandemic, Traveltech for Scotland has managed to remain agile, achieving high levels of business engagement and interaction.

From the Tech Tourism Catalonia team we began with a presentation from Marta Domenech i Tomas, Head of the Tourism Directorate, Catalan Government, who highlighted the important role that digital technologies are playing in tourism innovation in Catalonia, including AI and blockchain.

Anna Monjo, Senior Consultant for the Clusters Programme, from ACCIO Catalonia, gave us an overview of the Tech Tourism cluster, which currently has 31 members including start-ups, universities, tech centres and organisations which translates into approximately 2,000 jobs and an approximate turnover of 300 million euros.

The group was also interested to hear from Joan Ramon Blaya of CETT, the leading higher education school in Tourism, Hospitality and Gastronomy, an affiliated centre of the University of Barcelona. CETT has a strong focus on employability and entrepreneurship for its students and alumni, with the organisation receiving more than 1,400 job offers for students and alumni and about 700 signed collaboration agreements with top companies in the sector.

Business Pitches: Catalonia and Scotland

Both the Scottish and Catalan companies delivered 3-minute business pitches with Q&A sessions afterwards. The Catalan businesses expertly pitching were Prestige Software, The Hotels Network, The Barcelona Hotels Guild, Qualla Kids and GNA Hotel Solutions. The pitches offered a useful session for all businesses to get to know each other better and find out about their respective challenges, stages in the market and more.

Despite being from different locations, several of the challenges were the same and the group appreciated this knowledge exchange. The Scottish team pitches, from Electrek Explorer, Joiin, NEAR, Whereverly and Hotel Benchmark also offered a diverse range of businesses and tech innovations for our Catalan colleagues to discover.    

The Traveltech Journey: Holibob

In the afternoon, Craig Everett, CEO and Co-Founder of growing traveltech company Holibob, spoke about the journey and evolution of the business and the challenges of scaling a start-up, prompting a frank and open discussion with the group which generated some great questions. Craig offered some useful advice for many in the room, about understanding your product and your customer, not being afraid to take risks and to go with your gut instinct.

Site Visit: Virgin Hotels Edinburgh

To end the day’s events, the Catalan group made a site visit to the recently opened Virgin Hotels Edinburgh, where they were warmly welcomed by Director of Sales, Emma Jackson, and Assistant Director of Sales, Kate Lilley. We enjoyed a show-round, a talk from Emma and Kate on the kind of tech used in the rooms and by the team to manage hotel activities, as well as wonderful hospitality from the Virgin Hotels team, with many of our Catalan group already planning a return trip in the Autumn!

A Taste of Scotland and a Special Dram

In the evening, our group and invited guests enjoyed a Scottish Whisky tasting dinner at Amber Restaurant, The Scotch Whisky Experience, where the SWE team had kindly prepared a very special welcome dram, a Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban 14 year old whisky with a Port finish. A superb ending to an eventful day, with several new connections made.