The First Mediterranean Tourist Industry Forum on May 4th and 5th
will be organized by the Fira de Barcelona and the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce with the collaboration of the Spanish Association of Tourism, Culture, and
Entertainment Businesses (AEEATCE), and the Association of the
Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASCAME) within the
framework of the International Toursim Exhibition.
This Forum responds to the enormous expectations created by the
establishment in 2010 of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone for
economic development across the entire Mediterranean region. All public
and private institutions are invited to provide a boost to the sector, an
essential factor for integration and stability between both shores of the
Mediterranean.
Thus, the “1st Mediterranean Tourist Industry Forum†is born
with the aim of promoting debate, reflection, and the exchange of ideas
about the new challenges, international competitive scenarios, and
opportunities for regional economic and business development that the
future Pan-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone will mean for the sector,
beginning in 2010.
With this in mind, and with the purpose of favouring the success of the future
Euro-Mediterranean association, at the end of the 90s the European Union
agreed the need to develop joint strategies to benefit the sector, with the
purpose of creating a common vision of sub-regional and regional
development, so as to adapt to the challenges faced.
The aim of implementing all of these community measures and steps is to
guarantee the viability of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone and so
open up a broad range of opportunities for the sector.
It is precisely the need to respond to all these issues that militates in favour
of organising a Forum in which the various institutional and business parties
with an interest in the tourist sector can play an active part, offering their
vision of the pros and cons, the challenges as well as the opportunities that
this future Pan-Mediterranean zone could offer.
Barcelona, Mediterranean capital par excellence and prime mover in the
process of strengthening the ties between both shores, offers itself as the
ideal platform between the Mediterranean and Europe enjoying as it does
the essential features to furnish Governments, institutions, and the private
sector with all the elements to forge ahead with their economic development.
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