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Presentation of the world-wilde network of information and exchange of experiences on sustainable tourism

Christophe DEVOUASSOUX - Vice-President of the Mont-Blanc Leman Observatory of sustainable development Archamps, France

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased and honoured to be able to introduce to you the Tourism Summits electronic network. This is the network that we outlined to you last year at the inaugural summit, and you will find details of it in the folder that was sent to you.

First of all, I would like to highlight the aims of this network that in itself has four tasks to fulfil :

1

Firstly, to give all interested parties access to all available tourism-related information, thus establishing contacts and creating synergies between the key players, groups and organisms all working towards the same goals of sustainable tourism ;

2

Secondly, this network hopes to become a place for meetings and dialogue, and as such must act as a forum for experimenting with the principles of sustainable tourism, in so doing encouraging thoughts and dialogue between key political, economic and social players concerned with the future of tourism. It must encourage a positive exchange of new experiences and bring to the fore key projects involving new skills, new tourist industries, economic or social measures or even heritage development ;

3

Next, this network must serve as a decision-making tool, providing new scope for thought to consider the future, help to identify any emergent tourism trends and to develop tangible and innovative solutions ;

4

Finally, this network is not only aimed at you, the specialists. Its aim is also to make the general public aware of the challenges posed by sustainable tourism, and in this context we don't only need to know how to " build or otherwise develop locations that have been earmarked for tourism " as regards long-term principles, but also to also how to " travel in alternative ways ". We need to encourage new relationships between the visitor and the visited, codes of conduct or a series of recommendations with a view in particular to having more respect for the individual identity and cultural diversity of our societies.

Now that I've covered these objectives, I come to the actual content of our network, or should I say your network. Six sections are already on line :

The ST region covering the region where the Summits originate, an area that goes beyond boundaries as it covers not only the town of Chamonix but also the Haute-Savoie region, Geneva city and district, the Rhône-Alps region, and the city of Turin and the provinces ;

The Tourism Summits providing detailed information about the Summits' philosophy and objectives and how it works ;

The foundations of sustainable tourism providing information about laws, texts, charters, statements or recommendations at either an international, European or national level ;

The press service whose aim is to assist specific media work ;

The members' area for all types of sustainable tourism specialists (i.e. those of you who are already members, and those of you who will become members in the future). They notably include the list, references and addresses of our partners together with some specific sustainable tourism experiences that we wish to promote. I'll come back to this in a moment ;

The network charter that clearly defines the network's objectives and specifies the ethical principles that all members must undertake to honour.

Now I would like to add some detail and then go back to the members' area.

The six sections that I have just outlined went online on 22 November, barely three weeks ago. That should explain the surprise some of you have expressed, since our first event in December 1999, at not having seen the site evolve, especially if it's not in the basis for reflection and this year's program. There are two reasons for this. Firstly we reckoned that, to ensure consistency, it would be more appropriate to gather together all the information available first rather than going in fits and starts. As you will have been able to see today, what you couldn't see on-screen was being developed off-screen. Secondly, and more importantly, it was because the aim of this first year's work was to establish and then consolidate reliable and efficient collaboration with our partners throughout the world. This, as you may well suspect, is quite a shambles of a task.

Without digressing that now leads me to introduce the results of the work we have undertaken, and so I now return to the members' area. The world map in front of you shows the countries where we have established a partnership with some key players, be they from the fields of politics, economics, associations or academia. As you will see there are some contacts already established and some that are being created, the only subtle difference being, you would no doubt agree, that some are already partners whereas others are undoubtedly partners of the future.

It's in a large part thanks to these partners that we have been able to put online some of the experiences, examples of which you can see scrolling through on the screen. I must emphasise that from these experiences we must get to know each other better and exchange information. Although none of them are perfect and there is no such thing as perfection, they all have a common goal, a common aim : to encourage tourist projects that are economically viable, ecologically sustainable and socially justifiable. This exchange of experiences goes beyond the originality of this network; it's essentially at its core. In all cases we truly believe that this medium may be the most effective in promoting, in practical terms, sustainable tourism.

The work undertaken in the past year is only in it infancy and more patience and time is needed to increase our partnerships and consolidate our actions. Nevertheless, the interest is clearly there for us to see at all our meetings and discussions and on the part of all our partners. We remain resolutely optimistic. How can we fail to be otherwise, knowing the well-known formula that says that a pessimist is merely an optimist who lacks experience !

Before I finish, I invite you all to become members and partners of the network, to bring to it your own experiences, thoughts, working methods and suggestions, in other words everything that will help to create "alternative" tourism.

How can you become a member? How can you contribute to the exchange of experiences? What can each of you bring to the scheme, and in what form? You must have so many questions, but unfortunately I don't have the time here to answer them fully in this plenary session. So may I invite you to visit our stand when you have a break during the course of the next couple of days. It is located in the Joseph Vallot hall, and we will be delighted to provide you with all the information you need.

Thank you for your attention.
Slideshow

1	Firstly, to give all interested parties access to all available tourism-related information, thus establishing contacts and creating synergies between the key players, groups and organisms all working towards the same goals of sustainable tourism ;

2	Secondly, this network hopes to become a place for meetings and dialogue, and as such must act as a forum for experimenting with the principles of sustainable tourism, in so doing encouraging thoughts and dialogue between key political, economic and social players concerned with the future of tourism. It must encourage a positive exchange of new experiences and bring to the fore key projects involving new skills, new tourist industries, economic or social measures or even heritage development ;

3	Next, this network must serve as a decision-making tool, providing new scope for thought to consider the future, help to identify any emergent tourism trends and to develop tangible and innovative solutions ;

4	Finally, this network is not only aimed at you, the specialists. Its aim is also to make the general public aware of the challenges posed by sustainable tourism, and in this context we don't only need to know how to " build or otherwise develop locations that have been earmarked for tourism " as regards long-term principles, but also to also how to " travel in alternative ways ". We need to encourage new relationships between the visitor and the visited, codes of conduct or a series of recommendations with a view in particular to having more respect for the individual identity and cultural diversity of our societies.