Mr. Lopez de Avila is the Director of Innovation, Education and Investment of UN Tourism. Previously, he was appointed as Global Manager of the Tourism for Rural Development Programme of UN Tourism (www.unwto.org), which was designed with the vision of making tourism a driver of rural development and wellbeing.

From 2019 to 2022, Antonio was co-founder and CEO of Tourism Data-Driven Solutions (www.tourismdds.com) an international Strategic Consultancy firm on Smart Tourism Destinations headquartered in Madrid (Spain) with delegations in Mexico City (Mexico), Bogotá (Colombia), and Shanghai (China). Member of the Smart Tourism Destinations Network of Spain.

Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the UNWTO on Innovation and Technology in 2017, he led the Smart Tourism Destination Initiative in Spain as President-CEO of SEGITTUR (www.segittur.es) from 2012 to 2017. A leading and very innovative initiative worldwide that is changing the Tourism strategy in the XXI century, based on Sustainability, Innovation, Technology, Accessibility, and Governance. He has led the implementation of over 20 projects in Spain, México, and Argentina. This initiative has received the two most important recognitions at a global level:  UNWTO Ulysses Award 2018 for Innovation in Research and Technology and WTTC Global Champion Award 2019.

As a scholar, he is also a Professor of Innovation Management, and he was Director of the Travel&Tourism Innovation Initiative at IE University (www.ie.edu) from 2008 to 2011 and from 2017 to 2019. He has participated in many seminars since 2004 as a professor of Innovation Management and later as an international expert on Smart Tourism Destinations.

He focuses on various research areas in Tourism like Innovation, Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Smart Tourism/Smart Destinations, Rural Tourism, and Green Tech, in both the private and public sectors.

International speaker since 2008, he has participated in conferences organised by European Union, UNWTO, WTTC, Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), and World Bank, among others.

He was president of Turisfera, Tourism Innovation Cluster of the Canary Islands (Spain) from 2019 to 2022.

Coordinator and co-author of the book “Smart Tourism Destination: Building the Future”, edited by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of Spain in 2015, which became a worldwide reference for academics, companies, and destinations. He is also the author of many press articles and academic reviews.

He earned an Executive MBA from IE Business School (www.ie.edu) and a bachelor’s degree in Law from ULPGC (Spain).

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alopezdeavila

@alopezdeavila