Mersin, September 30, 2016 – The Mediterranean Tourism Forum (MEDITOUR) closes today its 7th edition in Mersin, Turkey, presenting its firm bet, today more than never, for a united tourism like the pillar for the peace and the development in the region. This meeting of reference to the tourist regional sector organized by the Association of the Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASCAME) together with the Chamber of Commerce of Mersin, has received for three days more than four hundred participants, among them, businessmen and representatives of sectorial, governmental associations and international organizations, as well as a discharge attends of Turkish and regional mass media.

Highlights of the event

MEDITOUR 2016 has seen relevant Turkish personalities, such as the Minister of Tourism and Culture, HE. Mr Nabi Avci, or the Minister of Development, HE. Mr Lütfi Elvan, as well as the Commission of ASCAME’s Tourism, represented by its president, Don Jerónimo Perez Casero, dozens of representatives of the private sector and chambers of commerce of the Mediterranean region. All the participants have embraced the idea of the industry of tourism is crucial to approach the socioeconomic current challenges in the region, while it generates employment and multiplies industry. Since the current governor of Mersin has declared, this sector is the one that more GDP generates not only in Turkey, representing 11 % but in other Mediterranean countries.

In this sense, a wide range of opportunities for the sector have been approached by the attendees, from the high number of Chinese tourists that every year come to the region or the important role that the third age tourism will play in the next years, up to the need to create a Mediterranean Travel agency.
The countries of the Mediterranean must bet for the diversification to compete globally, being the sector of cruises or the maritime one of the most powerful a today with more than 3 million generated employments, according to Mrs Esencan Terzibasoglu, Director of the management of destinations and quality of the World Tourism Organization (OMT), has added during the conference. The tourism is the most important source of creation of employment, especially for the unemployed young persons of the region, there has concluded the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Mersin, Mr Serafettin Asut.

Sustainable tourism

Some imminent challenges for the industry have been indicated, as the importance of developing sustainable tourism with the implication of the private sector, or the need to improve the quality of the infrastructures, and to adapt the tourist regional offer to the different tourist profiles.
Among the forum closing remarks, compiled in the Declaration Meditour 2016, it is necessary to emphasize the bet for a sustainable development that should allow continuing in the path of regional growth, besides a tourist joint offer for all the countries of the Mediterranean, which gathers so much its cultural diversity and historical legacy. Definitively, the creation of a tourism brand for the whole region, which allows the Mediterranean countries to collaborate and to compete together.

Tourism is the best instrument of promotion that the Mediterranean region has and, for this reason, the countries of the region must cooperate and compete together so as to generating income, creating jobs for the youngest and contributing to the peace and stability in both shores of the Mediterranean.
To continue promoting the consolidation of a global vision of Mediterranean tourism, the following edition of this biannual forum will take place in Alexandria, Egypt, in 2018.