Interview Álvaro F. Díaz, CTO of Tourism Optimizer Platform (TOP)

The Tourism Optimizer Platform (TOP) Project, a pioneer in the governmental and institutional travel sector, and responsible, among others, for the identification of the sector, has always been characterized by its firm commitment to technology.

The project itself, the preparation of the International Standard, the important package of aids and solutions proposed by TOP, and its recent integration into a digital ecosystem called GOVERSYS, rest on eminently technological precepts.

Álvaro F. Díaz, from his position as CTO of TOP, and thanks to his professional career, narrates below how all this was carried out, as well as some of the particularities of the sector and of GOVERSYS.

Q: Being in TOP since its inception, we understand that you are responsible for the strong technological leverage of the project, but what exactly does this mean?

A: The truth is that technological leverage has been my fault, or thanks to me. During my professional career, I have opted for technology to help business processes to increase their productivity, not only by automating these processes, but also by making them more robust and objective.

When I understood the scope of what was intended to be carried out in the first study and analysis of the sector, we drew up a roadmap that would allow requirements to be taken offshore in a very agile way, in order to be able to draw conclusions and apply algorithms to already standardized data. and uniforms.

This allowed us to draw conclusions about the homogenization of needs. Something that led us to create the GITT International Standard.

This process was possible thanks to technology, moreover, as a curiosity we must understand that the idea of creating a document that included the standardization was not human, but rather came from an algorithm.

Since then, everything, absolutely everything, has been developed supported by technology, from the solutions offered to the agents involved, to internal solutions to speed up the operations of our team.

Q: TOP has decided to centralize its solutions on a platform called GOVERSYS. What is GOVERSYS and what does this centralization imply?

A: This is question reminds me of hours and hours, and meetings, debating what would be GOVERSYS and what would not be.

For this, I am going to try to give a very pragmatic vision.

We are talking about Government Trips. An activity that today is carried out daily and will continue to be carried out with or without us. How is it done now? It is done with what in business is called “substitute product”. That is, there is nothing specific for my need, but I adapt to what does exist to meet my minimum needs.

This can be a problem for certain types of travelers and, above all, organizers; since, as we know, this type of travel is characterized by needs that are different from other trips, and cannot always be adapted to this substitute product.

Not only did the Standard emerge from that analytical study, but the need for professionalization and specialization solutions for certain services remained latent, since many of these do not end up reaching 100% of the needs of the delegations.

That being said, my fellow marketers would probably tell you that GOVERSYS is the government travel vertical, or vertical platform, that solves real market demand. But that may not concretize the answer, so I'll go into a bit more detail.

GOVERSYS brings together and integrates in one place, in this case a web portal, all the solutions that TOP has created, as well as third-party solutions that TOP validates that may be of interest to the agents involved in the operation of this type of travel. . In addition to this, information of interest about the sector is offered, always within this same portal, such as interviews, opinion articles, advice and an endless number of activities that are collected on the portal.

The summary of all this is that if someone is dedicated to government trips, and at TOP we have done our job well, this person will find in GOVERSYS an unprecedented and extremely useful tool, the use and consultation of which will always help them when propose, organize or carry out any operation related to this type of travel.

Q: At a technological level, what differentiates this segment from others?

A: I will be brief: volumetry and seasonality.

What do I mean by volumetry? Well, the volume (quantity) of transactions in this sector differs greatly from other sectors due to volumetry. These transactions are of greater amount and are less quantity.

Regarding seasonality, it is precisely what is most remarkable at a technological level, since, unlike other sectors, computer systems and particularly servers, are prepared throughout the year for the "high season" periods. In this case, the seasonality of the requests is almost linear. Government travel takes place almost equally throughout the year in all regions of the world.

Q: Finally, it is important to ask what we consider to be a key question, as well as a compromise for the sector, could these trips be replaced with technology in the future? And if so, what terms are handled?

A: Yes, it is true that this is both a very important and a compromising question. It is evident that my answer is clearly subjective, but I am going to try to make an exercise of objectivity based on my experience.

First of all, it is important to provide an overview of tourism. I firmly believe that tourism will never stop and that technology will not stop us from visiting places and living experiences and adventures. The warmth of the people, the climate, the smells and the sensations I believe that we will never be able to replace them with technology; not even with technologies like "META" that aims to digitize the individual in a digital world with an "avatar". We will be able to communicate, but we will always want to travel.

With this background, which I think many would subscribe to, we must extrapolate it to government trips. Many of these meetings require a certain complicity, closeness and even extreme confidentiality. We are talking about a type of confidentiality that is more personal than diplomatic, but this is precisely what makes diplomacy flow... the complicity between some of the agents involved in it.

As I said, it is my vision, but I think that this extrapolation is correct.