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  Brief introduction to the discussions

Mr. Michel CHARLET - Chairman of Tourism Summits - Mayor of Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France

 

Four years ago, Chamonix decided to launch the Tourism Summits in a search for answers to the major issues it has been facing for decades.

Today we are opening the fourth portal in a thought-provoking cycle addressing the four aspects of sustainable tourism - environmental, economic, social and cultural - which together form an interdisciplinary approach at world level to meet the demands of global vision.

After three days of constructive and fascinating work, our Chairman, Professor Peter Keller will on Friday present an assessment of these four years.

Just like our partner Geneva, Chamonix is enriched by these confrontations of ideas and lessons drawn from other tourist sites.

In addition, this year’s theme focusing on culture and its sustainability under globalisation concerns our communities, particularly mine, which are already confronting problems of excessive numbers of visitors that can with difficulty be reconciled with protecting the environment, and also of economic transformations which result in work tools changing hands.

Once aware of this, economic and elected players were keen to take stock of the situation in Chamonix and define a strategy. The unanimous choice of a strategy focusing on “Natural resources and heritage” was refined during 2002.

A shared approach, therefore, requiring a genuine undertaking from all of us to do better, not more, and which commits the community to consider each project and each action by the yardstick of its impact on the natural and cultural heritage.

A critical assessment of policy over the last decades, a confrontation with other economic decision-makers, support for the thought processes of a developing region, such as planned with the Bhutan, all fit naturally into these 4th Tourism Summits which we all hope will be the forum for a new round of encounters next year.