On 13 October, the 2018 Annual Conference of International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA) opened at the Guiyang International Eco-Conference Center. With the theme “New era of science and technology: new opportunities for the innovation and development of the world mountain tourism”, with a focus on new opportunities, new space and models for mountain tourism development in the new era of science and technology, the conference looked into “new technology + mountain tourism”. Events held at the conference included the Thematic Forum, Dominique de Villepin’s Saloon, Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World, Seminar, Business Fair for Mountain Tourism and World Famous Mountain Photography Exhibition.
The IMTA Council deliberated on IMTA’s next-year work plan, approved the applications of 16 new members, issued the initiative for setting “World Mountain Tourism Day” on May 29 together with Everest Day and launched the research project Report on Development Trends of World Mountain Tourism. Several highlighted sessions of the conference added splendor to technology support for the innovative development of world mountain tourism.
Nearly 300 attendees participated in the conference and among them were leaders from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China; provincial leaders of Guizhou; representatives from international tourism organizations; IMTA’s leaders and members; industrial, academic and research scholars; as well as representatives from the press. Former Prime Minister of France Dominique de Villepin, President of IMTA; Lu Yongzheng, Vice Governor of the People’s Government of Guizhou Province; Yan Han, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Tourism Cities Federation and other guests addressed the conference.
To promote international exchange and business cooperation in tourism, and build an exchange platform for world mountain tourism, the IMTA annual conference set up the “Dialogue among Famous Mountains in the World”. As an exchange and cooperation platform newly built by IMTA, the event invited representatives of 14 famous mountains from across the world, including world-renowned mountain destinations like the Himalayas(Nepal), Alps, Gunung Batur, Changbai Mountain, the Cairngorms, Mount Cook, Mount Elbrus, Mount Fuji, Table Mountain, Mount Huang, Itatiaia, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Rocky Mountains and Mount Tai. The representatives conducted promotion, and held a dialogue on the ecological protection and rational utilization of mountains, benefiting mountain people and sustainable development, to promote mountain exchanges and cooperation. Also, they discussed the issues of enhancing the aggregation force of destinations, realizing models such as tourism + town, tourism + culture and tourism + e-commerce, and building attractions into IP, all-for-one tourism, content marketing, etc.
Representing NATTA, IPP Mr. Madhusudan Acharya presented the presentation on behalf of Nepal on Mountains of the World.
