How do we imagine tourism? Integrating technology into the solution by Natalia Bayona

With a diverse background on politics, destination management and business, she has become the first innovation director at UNWTO and has introduced entrepreneurship as key factor for tourism and development. Her work consists on identifying the most disruptive startups and investment projects and matching them with Member States and leading corporations. As an advocate of youth and technology, she seeks to make entrepreneurs grow for a promising future in all regions.

For 2 and a half years, Natalia has developed 7 UNWTO Startup Competitions and 4 Innovation Challenges, including the Healing Solutions for Tourism edition, with outcomes such as more than 45 million Euros in support for entrepreneurs and pilots for safe travel. Moreover, she has designed the Tourism Tech Adventures innovation forums and co-created the UNWTO Tourism Online Academy for advancing skill development in the sector in collaboration with the most pretigious universities. She has also opened the Multilateral Investment Cooperation area for tourism and is currently working on high-impact projects to #RestartTourism.

Natalia graduated in Government and International Relations from Universidad Externado de Colombia and holds an Executive MBA from the IE Business School. Nowadays, she is part of the World Economic Forum network as a European Digital Leader and is an Eisenhower Fellow as the first Colombian on the Women Leadership Program for creating the first Tourism for Tomorrow Alliance Fund: a high-level network focused on joining public-private efforts for high-impact investments in digital education and innovation for tourism’s sustainable development and post Covid-19 recovery.

In 2017, she served as the Vice President of International Development for the Spain Startup – South Summit and organized the first South Summit Pacific Alliance, connecting the main stakeholders of the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

Having worked in ProColombia for ten years, she has lived in six countries where has developed strategies to boost exports, foreign investment and tourism for Colombia. Her career started in 2006 as part of the team that created the first international tourism campaign for Colombia: “Colombia, the risk is wanting to stay”, which sought to change the image of the country abroad. The successful execution of this campaign in more than 15 countries was possible thanks to her work.