WORLD CONGRESS OF SNOW, MOUNTAIN AND WELLNESS TOURISM

Tourism is one of the strategic economic sectors of many countries, with a significant percentage of GDP and millions of jobs depending of it. For Andorra, tourism accounts for 50% of GDP and in Europe the median is 10%.

According to UN Tourism, international tourism recovered 84% of pre-pandemic levels in the January-July 2023 period (-16% versus 2019) after a strong second quarter and the first part of the northern hemisphere summer season. Travel demand continued to show remarkable resilience and sustained recovery, amid economic and geopolitical challenges. These results show that international tourism remains on track to reach between 80% and 95% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

Andorra and UN Tourism Academy are working intensively to grow training and education in different areas of tourism. Snow and mountain tourism, as well as wellness tourism, are sectors that allow sustainable development, the conservation of biodiversity and the generation of employment and wealth in rural and mountain areas.

Andorra actively collaborates to ensure that tourism in mountain areas is seen as a lever for destinations in order to advance faster and better by serving as an engine of economic growth, inclusive development, and environmental sustainability. However, Andorra, as well as other mountain tourist destinations, also face major challenges, such as climate change, global competition, seasonality, and adapting to new traveller demands and expectations. For this reason, a new perspective is necessary, which allows us to innovate, diversify and improve the quality and competitiveness of our tourism offer.

Reflecting these new trends, the Congress is back in its latest edition including the term wellness, thus becoming the WORLD CONGRESS OF SNOW, MOUNTAIN AND WELLNESS TOURISM.

In this edition, where we will naturally address mountain tourism, the aim is to define and specify the future axes of development of snow, mountain and wellness tourism.

To ensure the growth of the tourism sector, the following issues need to be discussed today:

• Sustainability as a cornerstone for the development of the tourism sector
• Tourism diversification and emerging tourism products that drive the tourism of the future, in line with the new demands of travellers (nature, health, well-being, etc.)
• New technologies, AI applied to the tourism sector, digitalization
• Education and training