Spain in the World Year 2026… TOURISM “IS THE” PERMANENT BOND OF UNION BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS.
By José Aleixandre Caballero : July 2026
For me it all began with the happy arrival of the first “foreign” travelers* who visited Spain with some frequency back in the 1940s, in search of peace and family tranquility.
Here almost no one spoke their languages… but instead of representing an obstacle, it was an ingenious incentive and stimulus, so it never represented a communication problem for Spanish natives, who made an effort to welcome them even if it meant gesturing and smiling so that they would feel good among us.
As the years went by we all evolved. We began to identify the tourists by origin and nationality, we even learned some of their languages… and in some cases they learned ours… Those sporadic, usually summer, friendly encounters gave us the opportunity to have enriching human contacts, with strangers from different social classes, customs and ways of life…. let us admit that those coexistences made us evolve and grow as human beings, and that beyond the personal bonds that were created, there were even business interests that were created and consolidated.
Human relationships have always been the determining bonds that fostered the foundations of success in the evolution of the business world in general… The encounters between people of such different origins and customs were based on experiencing life, to enrich one another… that is, to delve into knowledge of the human being in order to reach credibility and trust, through friendship…
Thus, through these encounters, many great initiatives were forged, which, based on mutual trust, facilitated the understandings necessary for both personal and business relationships, fostering the creation of businesses and customer-supplier loyalty.
Tourists who repeated their stays in Spain in the same resorts and hotels became “customers”… their visits to restaurants and bars where they were made to feel so good… also became commonplace, it did not matter how professional the people serving them were, simply because the warmth of the welcome, the willingness and human values were present and dedicated to treating the customer with respect.
Tourism in Spain evolved quantitatively over the years and overcrowding brought us “other” new customers and experiences… different, I would say, which mixed with those who contributed the most to us, even if with perhaps questionable behavior…
I can imagine, although it would be impossible to quantify, the amount of different benefits that Tourism has brought us and continues to bring us, because “the tourism industry” goes far beyond statistics that only quantify the number of visitors and their contribution to Spanish GDP… it is also the countless derivative businesses, scientific advances, creation of industries etc. etc. born through contacts had formally or informally with travelers who were once tourists…, from those countless human encounters with the outside world since forever… Relationships in which businesses were and are actively materialized… And that
today for some irrational reason or quite the opposite… we now call such encounters Networking… (“so that it seems like a new invention”??)
indeed, these days when Anglicisms, social networks, emoticons, sentence contractions and the most diverse technologies invade us and…. “almost” rule our human lives we must be very aware of our values… because our freedom! is very expensive… it is priceless… our own life must be far above any technological system that is not there to serve us, and/or guide us …..not to be a “slave” to it… what is above all else is our own human intelligence and feelings, with their infinite power of will and self-improvement which, together with the sensations and emotions inherent to being, grant us the great privilege of thinking, deciding and maintaining personal contacts at the highest level we wish….
Analyzing the content of this account leads me to continue thinking that everything that technologies “destroy”
by dehumanizing us and daily distancing us from family and friends …is beneficial at the same time as it creates opportunities for those communities that decide to “master” technologies by using only their advantages for their own benefit…. we cannot leave our decisions in the hands of “another” intelligence… we can use its data and adapt technologies but I would never risk being wrong, with its information…
We see today that, overcoming conflicts, tourism continues to grow, increases in numbers in all segments, leisure, Fairs, MICE …. in short they turn Tourism into a vital economy and bring us the hope of survival, in face-to-face contact…
It is the Tourism world and the parallel businesses it generates… because, to be redundant, tourism would not exist without human beings and neither would technology…
I think that one of the many things we have to thank the tourism industry in Spain for is the great growth that we have experienced thanks to its contribution for having accepted, allowed and supported, with more or less success, tourism businesses.
It does no harm to praise so many investors who, regardless of their quantitative interests… continue in this business conceived as human for humans… to them I say: be aware of the cowardice of money and the fragility of the businesses that exploit…
Special recognition to all those who understand that travelers are “still” potential customers, human beings; and that the quality of their products, services and hospitality come from and depend on human beings with natural intelligences… containers of their own defects and virtues…. And who use their credibility in dealing and contact to offer a tangible “being” the possible convergent solutions that exist for each situation from their human intelligences in order to continue with personal relationships.
I want, as an example, to highlight the principles of friendship, honor and credibility in human beings and I do so by remembering that small group of “friends”, all of them tourism businessmen, who as early as 1934 were visionaries aware of a patent, undeniable reality today….
that Tourism was, is and will be a human bond based on that credibility that friendship grants us as a necessary link… beginning, based on those principles, an international tourism association called Skål International, which today continues to successfully unite tourism business friends with common interests.
José Aleixandre Caballero : Technical Director Consultant for company’s and truistic business
