On November 17th-19th, the 2020 International Mountain Tourism Alliance Annual Conference opened in Guiyang. The Conference is concentrated on the theme of "The Path of Mountain Tourism Development in the Post-COVID World". During the annual conference, the participants focused on this major topic, and discuss depth in how to promote the revitalization and quality of mountain tourism after the pandemic, and provide thoughts guidance and practice support for global mountain tourism management and promotion of global tourism industry.

This Annual Conference is hosted by the International Mountain Tourism Alliance. UNWTO, WTTC, PATA, GTEF, WTA, WTCF, ASEAN-China Centre, WCCO and other well-know international organizations and associations provided powerful support.

The Address at Opening Ceremony
Dominique de Villepin, Chairman of International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA)

Excellencies, distinguished guests, and dear friends.

I’m deeply sorry not to be able to be with you in this beautiful place of Guiyang in the Guizhou Province. Because of the COVID-19, the world has been turned upside down in the last months. In such a moment, it is important for all of us to assess the new situation and this IMTA meeting is a good occasion.

We are facing a fantastic challenge. In the first part of the year, we have seen a drop with 300 million tourists and a loss of $320 billion dollars in revenue, more than three times the losses registered during the world crisis in 2009. The consequences are huge in terms of public health and of course unemployment which is aggravated with the uncertainty waiting in the coming future. What will happen in the next months? How long the borders are going to stay closed? What about the possibilities of air travels to be back to normal? We should consider at least for the next years two main evolutions.

First, the tourists will privilege local tourism in their own countries. This is already a growing trend that we have observed in the last years. It should continue and develop. Second, rural and mountain areas should benefit from this trend which corresponds also to a need felt by the general population to go back to nature and learn more about the wildlife, local cultures, and protecting the environment. Building up on such new trends, we should care more and more about the necessity of innovation in mountain tourism, combining the development of a new model of infrastructures and services with a regulated flow of tourists. The model of infrastructure should be adapted to the constraint of mountain areas in order not to destroy the landscapes and the harmony of those areas which means small constructions, respect of local traditions, proximity with nature.

At the same time, it is important to avoid the consequences, noise and pollutions of mass tourism. So the second evolution should be sustainability, very much linked to the previous one and integrating agriculture, nature-based activities, local cultures, outdoor pleasures, and sport activities connected with the protection of nature and biodiversity. In this way, mountain tourism will contribute even more to social change and economic growth are the advantage of local communities. There is a strong need and complementarity of mountain tourism in a world more and more dominated by the importance of big cities and urbanization. While the urban life is made of geometry, rationality, and sophisticated organization, mountain tourism is on the contrary, a world of surprise and adventure. Differences in lifestyles, differences in activities, differences in the relationship with nature and people, differences in the feeling of freedom, and a chance to override the constraints of daily life. Mountain tourism is for each one of us the gift of freedom, the gift of nature that corresponds so much to personal and family needs. That’s why it is so important today to make it accessible to everyone by multiplying tools and formulas for a large variety of clients including different possibilities. Such a policy should be encouraged by the creation or development of local mountain tourism bureau in the big cities, whether in China, Asia, or even Europe to make sure people will have access to the right information in order to prepare their travels and vacations. The preference for local tourism is something that we should integrate in our strategies, not only for health reasons but also for environment and cultural needs.

Our world is going to be less focused in the coming years on the development of globalization than of each of our nation-state. So in each region of the world, people will be looking more for options and solutions within their own geographic and cultural environment. This is an important asset for China and Asia because of the big number of local tourists and the large choice of destination in rural and mountain tourism.

The possibilities of development in this regard are huge but at the same time, we should avoid to take the wrong steps based only on the vision of financial return. In the past, we have seen that shortcuts in the development of tourism have wasted natural sites and spoiled large areas. We have seen such mistakes in many sea resorts in Europe, south of France, or in Spain or Italy privileging speed and uncontrolled development of tourism. When wrong choices have been made, it is often almost impossible to go back in order to take a fresh start. That’s why an organized and well-prepared proliferation is needed with strong local governance.

The exchange of policies and good practice is absolutely needed within one country but also within one region, including several countries sharing the same culture and geography. Complementarity and reciprocal benefits should not be replaced by the rule of competition.An online platform put in place by IMTA could be of a great help in connection with local and state governments.For mountain tourism, the Asian region has an incredible potential to be compared with Europe and South America but with the advantage today of a more and more competitive market and the highest gross rate of the planet in the post-COVID 19 era.That’s why the Silk Road Initiative represent a strong interest in the tourist sector and particularly for mountain tourism in the whole region.

The world transition we are going through is today another factor, pushing for change and encouraging Asia to move forward towards more unity and initiatives. The geopolitical transition China challenging the US for the world leadership as well as the environmental transition with climate change or the technological transition with the rise of the 5G and Artificial Intelligence are going to play an increasing role. The social consequences of such changes are huge with growing inequalities. The 1% riches of the population concentrating 80% of global wealth, increasing also geographic divisions, political tensions, and economic discrepancies, in such a context, how to adapt and take advantage of the new situation.

For mountain tourism, the new model we have seen emerge in the tourism industry in the last years made of concentration, internationalization, and innovation does not constitute in my mind the best answer. On the contrary, we should be looking for creative local solution and initiative to take into account the specificity of each region and also be able to differentiate the offer for different group of people and type of tourism. We should take into account the local situations to address this target, here in culture or health scale there are outdoor sports or family vacations. The variety and diversity of choices will constitute a helpful advantage. Diversity of choices, quality of infrastructures and services, sustainability of the approach should be the three pillars of the new mountain policy for the next years.

I’m confident that IMTA will fully use its leadership to make it possible for the benefit of the whole community. But in order to do so, we must fully measure the key importance of tourism in our post-COVID world. Of course, right now, tourism seems for many people around the world as an impossible dream because of the difficulty of traveling, because of the limitations on air travel, because of the health constraints. But tomorrow, when the world is going to open again, tourism will be back, a different tourism. More based on the quality of services on the safety and the quality of the organization at a human scale.

That’s why we should try to adapt to this new world beforehand to anticipate the needs of the people, to anticipate mainly the fear of the people who might be tempted to stay home rather than to travel, afraid of the risks and difficulties. In this regard, mountain tourism has many assets. Because as we have seen, it represents a strong added value for health, for family life, for the diversity of sports and entertainment, but also for cultural reasons. It helps understand better our world. It helps discover new people, a new way of life. Most of all, it helps combat intolerance and fear in a more certain and dangerous world. 

We have progressively entered a new area, following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the attack of 9/11, the Financial Crisis of 2008, the Arab Spring in 2011, and the COVID 19 in 2020.

Along with these important events, we have seen the rise of population, the growing tensions between the US and China, as well as the decline of multilateralism, as a result, the world community is more fragile and more divided than ever, lacking the spirit and the political tools to find the necessary answer. We have to understand that we are facing a huge revolution as important as the one we have seen in the western world in the 16th or 18th century.

A global revolution meaning a crisis of globalization, a crisis of nation-state but above all, a crisis of civilization. Our globalization is facing a huge transition, political with the shifting of power from the west to the east, demographic with the world population heading to 10 billion in 2050, ecological with global warming and growing natural disasters, technological with the competition between the US and China and the risk of partition of the digital space. In this context, the nation-state remains the key of world’s stability.But facing the risk of dislocation and uprootedness that plays in favor of nationalism, populism, and isolationism, beyond those issues,  we are threatened by a crisis of our traditional models. The international system is becoming hybrid with having the worst of every system favoring the right of the strongest, the claims of the most disruptive state, whether big or small as we have seen in the case of North Korea.But more than that, our societies are destabilized by the number of unfulfilled promises following the hope raised after 1945 concerning peace and stability. But also lack of productivity and growing inequalities around the world, even more worrying is the lack of effective tools to face the situation. The world community is too often paralyzed because of the inefficiency of the United Nations blocked at the level of the security council but also in the IMF or in the World Bank, lacking legitimacy and efficiency. Such a situation lives the floor to the tyranny of fear, rumors, and uncontrolled passions, opening the door to uncontrolled and hazardous adventures. Facing such a confusion, we should not underestimate the risks. The first one is confrontation with the threat of radical Islam, terrorism, but also identity hysteria and the spiral of isolationism and protectionism. The second is the risk of fragmentation of globalization that can make us fall into the Thucydides trap that leads to war in most of the cases. But the main risk will be a severe blow to our civilization with the double challenge of a selfish globalization with the scenario of technology being confiscated to the benefit of a limited group of people and countries to ensure domination. Along with an uncontrolled global warming threatening life itself in our planet.

In this context, I would like to make some proposals. First, I believe urgent to put in place a common diplomacy based on the general interest and some key principles, equality of old people, sovereignty of each state, and dignity of all civilization. The first common is of course peace, that implies a profound reform of the security council. The second common should be the defense of the environment with the creation of a world carbon market and a common tool to fight deforestation. The third common is culture which allows the people of the world to get to know each other better. The fourth common is of course tourism. Because nothing better can facilitate the discovery of all the countries and different people in their own environment. Tourism is a unique experience that can help us fight against misunderstandings, hate, and intolerance. Such a commons diplomacy should go along a renewal of multilateralism to address for example, nuclear proliferation, arms control, biodiversity, the sharing of key technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, health data, or the Internet of Things. Such a common policy could encourage also a better understanding of important global initiatives such as One Belt One Road to make our people work together on a reciprocal basis based on trust and respect.

Thank you very much.