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Objectives of the Tourism Summits of Chamonix Mont-Blanc / Geneva

Michel CHARLET - President of the Association Tourism Summits, Mayor of Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France

 

Mr President,
Madam Minister,
Mr Councillor of State,
Your Excellences,
Ladies and Gentlemen, representatives of international organisations,
Ladies and Gentlemen Mayors,
Dear participants of the Tourism Summits,
Dear friends,

 

In my capacity as President of the Tourism Summits, but more especially in my role as Mayor of Chamonix and Vice-president of the Haute-Savoie General Council, I would like to say what an honour and pleasure it is for me to be here in Geneva, on the eve of the fête de l'Escalade (Climbing festival) that is so dear to the people of Geneva, to open the second Tourism Summit.

I am all the more aware of what an honour it is because the initiative that we launched two years ago, with the support of the Mont-Blanc Léman Observatory (OML), for sustainable development is still an extremely ambitious one. At the dawning of this new decade it consists of nothing less than putting tourism into the discussion arena and to find some solutions to the challenges that we are facing.

In effect tourism can be a formidably enriching factor for populations that allows knowledge to be shared, encourages mutual understanding, and stimulates growth in all our countries, but in particular in those countries that are developing.

However it can also be a key player in creating cultural and social imbalance, damaging ecological systems, endangering heritages, with all the inherent social and political con-sequences that this may create.

Tourism is a true phenomenon of, and at the heart of the wide-ranging concerns of, society. It is still searching for a universal vision that will respect the interests of host populations, their heritage and our environment, both on a local and global scale.

There is no question that controlled tourism incites another way of thinking about in-vestments and organising infrastructures. However it also encourages "another way to travel".

It is well worth considering new self-regulation mechanisms with all the partners in-volved in their development (private and private sectors, associations and universities).

Our task is a perilous one bearing in mind that this second summit is being held in the wake of the phenomenally successful first one. Our challenge is therefore not only to repeat this success, but also to lay down some foundations and convince all our partners of the need for this way forward.

Clearly we cannot just sit back and wait and see. In recent months we have increased our number of contacts, broadened our partnership, taken part in many different think-tank sessions, entered into an initial cycle of training and developed our computerised network. Although our means have been limited, these efforts have already borne some fruit. In particular I suggested last year to Mrs DEMESSINE to consider organising a meeting in Chamonix of French-speaking tourism ministers, and I can confirm that this idea has today been taken up by the French-speaking world who will discuss it during one of the forthcoming ministerial meetings with a view to getting this proposal adopted during the next French-speaking Heads of State conference due to take place in Beirut in less than a month's time.

On another subject, and at the request of the Mission Interministérielle del'Effet de Serre (MIES), (the Interministerial Mission for the Greenhouse Effect), we held a meeting in June this year a meeting to discuss the question of climatic changes and their possible effects in mountainous regions.

In June, and in collaboration with the Centre International de Formation des Acteurs Locaux (CIFAL), (International Training Centre for Key Players), we organised an inaugural training module, in Divonne, for key players covering the new challenges brought about by tourism development.

These are merely a few examples - I could quote many others - but they are symptomatic of our desire for strong and intelligent intervention in this discussion which, I say loudly and clearly, is not only irrefutable but also affects every level of society.

Having last year talked about the environmental effects of tourism and defined the meaning of the term "sustainable tourism", and before we devote the coming year to the social impact of tourism, we must turn our discussions to the relationship that tourism has with our economic development. I shall therefore now turn to the theme of this second Summit.

Growth is a particularly important theme given that the right circumstances have en-couraged our economies to make considerable new investment in tourism infrastructure. By way of an example I will quote from an American study that found that the "theme park" industry was worth in the United States some 9.5 million dollars this year (up 4.4 % in one year). In Europe this figure is more like 2.5 million dollars. Of course these figures are sending some of our local councillors off into dreamland, but we also need to pay serious consideration to the real effects that these types of undertakings have on growth. I am all the more eager to mention this fact as in Chamonix I personally abandoned the idea of establishing a theme park dedicated to mountains around the world, as I was not convinced that it would offer sufficient positive effects for our economic and tourism development.

In its latest conclusions concerning the potential for tourism published scarcely three weeks ago, the Commission rightly recommended four types of action that correspond point by point to the efforts that we have been undertaking for the past two years. These are :

• cooperation between the key socio-economic players and creation of networks, which is the very essence of the measures taken by the Tourism Summits,
• problem awareness, which is exactly the purpose of the discussions that we will be having over the next three days,
• information, to which I personally would add creating awareness, which is the reason for the work that we have undertaken within the framework of the Tour-ism Summits charter,
• monitoring and being vigilant, which is the same as one of the proposals con-tained in our measures and our charter, one to which we are proposing a solution via the network that we are constructing.

I am also thrilled by the initiative taken by Mrs DEMESSINE who organised a seminar and meeting of European tourism ministers that took place on 22 November in Lille. It gives a strong signal to all our European partners, and is a groove that we must follow to reinvent policy at the level of the challenges that we must face together and with the same action plan. I am further delighted by the closer and closer collaboration that exists between its minister and the Tourism Summits.

Without wanting to encroach too much on the theme of the third Tourism Summit in 2001, and at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I would like to add that we must be extremely aware of the social impacts that tourism development may have. The stakes of modern sustainable tourism do not only apply to the effects that tourism flows may have on the ecology and their impacts on our regional and national economies. They also affect both the workforce and the working conditions in our industrialised countries - in particular I'm thinking here of the sometimes abusive nature of temporary and sea-sonal work- as well as in developing countries.

With this thought bringing me back to the subject in hand, I must emphasise that our discussions must not merely be academic ; they must also help bring about some con-crete solutions. We must, as the expression goes, sweep our own backyards. The Tourism Summits in either Chamonix or Geneva will not be credible unless we remain sensitive to the impact of tourism development in our own region.

I feel the matter is important enough to mention that our citizens have lost a great deal of the confidence they had until recently in the authorities. There are several factors that could explain their disillusionment, and this is forcing us to rethink the way we deal with management problems and to encourage other partners to be more involved in our development. However, even though we are all agreed on the diagnosis, it is clear that we are struggling to establish a sense of cooperation that will allow other partners to have sufficient faith in our skills.

As far as tourism is concerned, paradoxically the phenomenon is even clearer. In spite of the role played by tourism in economic, social and political development, not to men-tion the ecology, the authorities have handed this skill over to semi-public organisations who are more concerned with short-term investment than with implementing an integrated development program. It is this lack of vision that has earned the disapproval of a growing number of our citizens.

Therefore we must enter into new dialogue with all the key players involved in tourism. We must redress the relinquishment of our responsibilities in this sector that is, in ef-fect, the nerve centre, and we must also, with a renewed spirit and sense of collaboration, reestablish the climate of true dialogue that is essential if we are to achieve sustainable tourism.

The Tourism Summits offer the ideal place for encouraging this new dialogue and research. The work undertaken by the Tourism Summits over the past year to return to the classics in order to give some direction back to travelling answers the call of an ever-increasing number of our citizens the world over. The World Tourism Code drawn up in Santiago in 1999 emphasised that tourism "must be thought of and enjoyed as a fa-voured resource for individual and collective development". This will only be possible if we can oppose the economy diktat and the predominance of the "commercialisation" of travelling. Tourism that has either been cynically or excessively exploited - which often leads to the same results - will harm not only our environment but also our lives and our futures.

We know that it is possible to do it another way, to think of travelling in a more humani-tarian way to give it back its true meaning of the word. It doesn't necessarily mean a break from the past or throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead it simply means that we need to change our methods.

Once again that is one of the aims of the Tourism Summits, and the partnership created between the City and Republic of Geneva, Haute-Savoie and the Rhône-Alps region, wants to be involved. We need to enlarge our base and I invite all companies or collectives who want to support us in our way forward, to join us in our initiative.

That is why I'm delighted to see so many of you respond to this second challenge. Our work must be coordinated with all the other measures undertaken at local, regional or international level, and with this in mind the presence here of representatives from governmental and non-governmental international organizations is a very positive sign for the future development of the Tourism Summits.

Perhaps the fact that this address and brief statement of introduction has been made in this Bâtiment des Forces Motrices (Driving Forces Building) is symbolic in that it shows better than any words can do how we need to adapt to a constantly evolving environ-ment.

I look forward to welcoming you tomorrow morning in Chamonix, but in the meantime, best wishes to you all. Let's hope that with this second Tourism Summit we can continue along the road that we are following.