Nicolas Barrios

Luis Nicolás Barrios Medina-Montoya, Innovation Education and Investments Regional Manager for the UNWTO Regional Office in Riyadh.

Master in Project Management from Esden Business School. PMI-certified PMP. Master in Marketing and Commercial Management from IE Business School. Master in Audio-visual Production from IEEA. Degree in Audio-visual Communication from the University of Malaga.

Expert in technology and innovation applied to the tourism sector. From February 2003 until June 2020, he developed his professional career in Tourism in SEGITTUR, a state-owned company integrated into the Spanish Ministry of Industry Trade and Tourism and attached to the State Secretariat for Tourism, responsible for promoting innovation (R&D) in the Spanish tourism sector, both in the public sector.

Since 2012 he was involved, in different capacities, in the development and management of the Smart Tourist Destinations program. From 2019 to 2022 he was responsible for the direction and coordination of all the Smart Tourism Destination Projects in Latin America, coordinating projects in Tequila, Medellín and Bogotá.

In 2018 he coordinated the Extremadura Smart Territory project, the first adaptation to an Autonomous Community of the Smart Tourism Destinations methodology.

Previously, he was responsible for the implementation of the technological management tools of the Smart Tourist Destinations program, SEGITTUR’s mobile application development projects, the deployment of the public WIFI network of El Hierro (Canary Islands) and the design of the Volcanological Interpretation Centre of El Hierro.

Collaborating lecturer at IE Business School (since 2017). Collaborating lecturer at Ostelea School of Tourism & Hospitality (since 2018).