City Marketing Conference (Eurhodip 2010)

From July 10-14, 2010, we organized the 17th yearly Eurhodip Conference in Zaragoza. Eurhodip is the association of vocational and university level hotel and tourism schools in Europe. At the last two conferences, Casablanca 2008 and Bologna 2009, the social aspects of the congress had outweighed considerations of content, and it was our intention to strengthen the academic perspective of the meeting. The topic of City Marketing was chosen, for two reasons: the current development and relevance of discussions in this field, on the one hand, and our city's recent projects as a perfect justification for the subject choice.



For the conference venue and image we chose the 2008 Expo area with a more contemporary city skyline, as opposed to more traditional landmarks in the city center such as the Pilar Basilique. We therefore used a wonderful picture of the Night Skyline that was made available by Zaragoza Turismo (Daniel Marcos and Félix Bernad), which had also been the inspiration for our new logo.

Bureaucratic / Political deadlock

Initiating an (official) University degree in Spain requires permission at three levels, once all internal barriers (the universities' own committees and boards) have been dealt with: the regional autonomous government which ratifies the economic and educational justification, the University quality board at national level and finally a verification, again by the local government, where compliance with all regulations is checked.

What are the advantages of an official title? You will get a document signed by the King of Spain, normally not earlier than two years after completing your studies because of a centralized process. Holders will have access to State exams to enter into the Civil Service. Besides that, an official title gives prestige, and is frequently displayed on office walls, a custom in other countries only known in barber shops.

Earlier this year we applied for authorization of an official Degree in "Management of Hospitality Businesses". We went past step 1, but at step 2 this denomination was not approved since it was too similar to "Business Management". There are no legal grounds for this objection, for the denomination of university titles has been liberalized with Bologna.

We were obliged to call the degree "Tourist and Hotel Management". It is likely that this new denomination will lead to objections or a veto from the local Government. The reason will be the use of the word "Tourism"; they are reluctant to allow titles that may compete with their own Tourist schools.

Negotiations are currently in progress. The results are unknown, except for one certainty bureaucracies always give: delays.