Our CEO, Christophe de Bruyn, participated as a keynote speaker at the 3rd edition of the Kathimerini/reimagine-tourism Summit in Athens, Greece, held on November 18th and 19th in association with the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE). The event was primarily aimed at Greek tourism entrepreneurs, investors, Destination Management Organizations (DMO), and related sectors like aviation and maritime transportation, focusing on redefining the future of Greek tourism.
De Bruyn’s session was titled ‘Evolving the Product and Upgrading Marketing’ and was moderated by Mr. Aris Ikkos, Research Director at Institute SETE, the Research Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation, and inspired by THR founder Eulogio Bordas’ contributions. The presentation focused on three main topics:
- Demand Segmentation by “Mindset”: A focused approach to understanding tourist demand.
- Evolution of the Tourism Value Proposition: The shift toward experiential and transformational tourism across various product categories.
- The Role of Agentic AI: Its potential impact in seamlessly connecting segmented demand with personalized value propositions.
Finally, de Bruyn provided a conceptual inspiration for Greece to brand a unique value proposition based on the Eudaimonia concept of long-term personal transformation and the array of Greek soft and hard cultural heritage and culture.
These reflections showcase THR approach to marketing in its latest projects and lessons learned from data and benchmarks, which were brought in and illustrated in the presentation.
Mindset Segmentation: A More Focused Approach to Understanding Tourist Demand
The demand segmentation by “mindset” was the first topic addressed in the presentation made by Christophe de Bruyn, as a more focused and meaningful approach to segmentation, which works across other segmentation techniques such as demographics, travel parties (families, couples, etc.), source markets, etc. Amadeus and other 5 European Destinations have worked with this approach and been able to identify 8 to 10 different “mindsets” and quantify them for their country based on primary market research. THR worked on the application of segmentation by mindset recently in the Catalonia Region, while elaborating the new Marketing Plan of the Visitor Economy for the Catalan Tourism Agency.
Product Evolution: The Shift Towards Experiential and Transformational Tourism
The second part of the presentation addressed product evolution in different broad categories (rest, explore, special interest and meet) and then focused on the evolution and weight of experiential tourism versus conventional tourism. With a drastic change and impact in the past 3-5 years in favour on experiential tourism. Numerous data and examples were outlined in the presentation to support this statement including the latest results of our group proprietary platform, Travellyze.
Because of importance of cultural tourism in Greece, a special focus was put on the evolution of cultural assets towards a more experiential aspect, including interactive means, technology, and co-branding between public attractions and private sector brands. THR recent experience also reflects these trends through the repurposing project a leisure plot of land in the Municipality of Vilaseca (Spain) into a themed cultural and leisure destination with a strong immersive component. As well as our involvement in the expansion plan of the Yas Island tourism and leisure destination in Abu Dhabi, for the Miral company.
Transformational tourism, as a trendy and more in-depth interpretation of experiential tourism was also mentioned and illustrated. It involves actively seeking experiences that stretch, challenge, and nurture travellers by exposing them to new perspectives, cultures, and ways of living. In other words, a deeper immersion in the local culture, which also reflects and potentially impacts the traveller itself and “transform” his/her perception of the destination and of himself/herself.
The Role of AI and "Agentic" Systems in Connecting Segmentation and Experiential Tourism
The last topic introduced the role of AI and its potential impact to connect segmentation by mindset and experiential tourism, by facilitating online search driven by the end user to create its own travel itineraries: highly personalized, seamlessly integrated and extremely fast. The key word for this facilitation is called “Agentic”, IA agents that act, decide, and learn, provide automation of complete processes, massive-scale customization and enable a total integration / data sourcing from the whole value chain. It is a challenge but more importantly a major opportunity for tourism destinations and businesses to provide their own contents and get “direct” information access to the customer. To do so, they need to make sure that their contents get “picked” by the AI, which means two technical tools need to be used: “seeds”, i.e. micro-tourism resources generating content adapted to IA processing; and “connectors”, i.e. integrations with key IT /AI systems.
Is this going to create a new paradigm in the tourism information and distribution? Today, we can say it is already so with regards to access to information. As to distribution, will the power of OTAs shift for instance, and therefore reduce the dependency or the transaction fee for the tourism companies? It is too early to know!
Final Thoughts
We are living in a world where technology and the IA play a crucial role, but, at the same time (or maybe because of it), human “touch” and interactions are also increasingly searched and valued throughout the whole tourism and travel value chain. The tourism sector is best placed to provide that through “experiences” balanced with an intensive use of technology to facilitate processes.
