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This paper discusses plausible future scenarios for small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) in the “sun, sea and sand” destination of the Canary Islands (Spain) and assesses to what extent they are prepared to adjust to market changes and technological developments in the light of both sudden disruptions and long-term shocks.

A scenario analysis was made based upon expert interviews, leading to a 2 × 2 scenario matrix.

Although regional, national and European strategies advocate digital transformation as a step towards building resilience and towards a more sustainable future, this study identifies two major uncertainties that can put that transformation at risk: a change of the traditional “sun, sand and sea” visitor to a more conscious, individual and inquisitive traveller or “Promad”, and the business culture of SMTEs.

Resilience for sudden and for slow-paced disruptions poses different challenges for SMTEs. Their next step in the digital transformation must take them form marketing and sales-oriented e-business to growing interconnectivity and innovation across supply chains.

A market change towards the “Promad” type of traveller causes at least a temporary mismatch of demand and supply. As many SMTEs miss either the knowledge or the resources to invest in digital transformation, the process will depend on support and coordination at destination level.

The study identifies, with the example of the Canary Islands, the difficulties for destinations and individual businesses in making the envisioned transition of mass tourism to more competitive forms of tourism with a smaller ecological footprint.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evolving interpretations of the Covid crisis and its impact on hospitality and tourism.

Scenario planning paper following Framework Foresight about the Covid pandemic and its impact on hospitality and tourism. Research input was gathered from research reports in different disciplines and discussions with an expert panel.

The paper argues that hypothesized recovery scenarios were founded on hope and inaccurate extrapolations, and that hospitality and tourism may head for permanently lower volumes.

The paper contributes to the debate on tourism resilience and hopeful visions of a sustainable restart.

Instead of just focusing on direct pandemic impact and that of governmental measures, a third variable of consumer confidence will be decisive, and more important than expected by many initially, in future scenarios for hospitality and tourism.

The proposed scenarios that were designed with executive level industry input have so far proven more realistic than prevalent views of a swift recovery.

Although networked hospitality businesses as Airbnb are a recent phenomenon, a rapid growth has made them a serious competitor for the hospitality industry with important consequences for tourism and for tourist destinations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of the phenomenon, its potential further development in the next five years and the impact this developments will have on tourism, on hotels and on city destinations.

A literature study, combined with scenario workshops and a Delphi panel, were used to map current trends and uncertainties. With this input, future scenarios were elaborated using the Global Business Network (“scenario cross”) method.

Network platforms as Airbnb are often classified under something called the “Sharing Economy”, a denomination that obscures their true nature. Airbnb is a challenging innovation to which traditional hospitality will have to respond. Its impact has at the same time led to a call for regulatory policies. The definition of these policies and the evolution of tourism are variables that determine future scenarios. Attempts to ban the phenomenon mean a disincentive to innovation and protect oligopolistic markets; more receptive policies may have the desired results if tourism grows moderately but in booming destinations they may lead to a harmful commercialization.

Until now, Airbnb has been described in conceptual studies about the so-called “Sharing economy”, or more recently in empirical studies about isolated effects of holiday rentals. This paper contextualizes the evolution of networked hospitality and seeks to synthesize the sum of its impacts, thus enabling businesses and local governments to define positions and strategies.

The conference was dedicated to global changes in tourism and to their specific impact in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) region. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the discussions at the conference.

Summary and highlights of the conference papers.

This report summarizes the findings and recommendations discussed at the international “Tourism in Tomorrow's World” conference that took place in Doha, February 2014. The conference depicted global trends and developments to zoom in on specific opportunities for tourism development in the GCC area. In view of major events planned in the host country, event legacies were included as a special topic. Conference sessions were dedicated to investments in tourist attractions and hotels, the relation between education and industry and to cultural heritage and tourism. As a result of the conference strong opportunities for tourism development in Qatar and other GCC members were identified.

This has been the first international conference on long‐term tourism strategies in the GCC area. The underlying motivation was the growing awareness in the GCC area of the need for economic diversification and reduction of oil dependence. The conference coincided with the launch of the Qatar National Tourism Sector Strategy 2030.