MAURITIUS HOLDS AFRICA’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIGITALISATION AND SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

Tourism is a major source of income globally, especially for smaller countries that have a rich diversity of offerings for international travellers, yet current issues of climate change, sustainability and digitalisation together with super rapid progress in the data and information technology sectors are exerting a profound impact on tourism worldwide.

The conference provided an ideal platform for invited experts to share their views and insight in terms of balancing and paving the way forward in a digital age, where all global tourism stakeholders will be able to harness opportunities, while sustaining the tourism industry into the future.

Officially opened by Mauritian Prime Minster Pravind Jugnauth, in the presence of notable VIP guests such as President Didier Robert of Reunion, Catherine Abelema Afeku - Minister of Tourism, Arts & Culture of Ghana, Adil Hamid Daglo Mussa of the Republic of Sudan; Richard Via of Madagascar, Fekitamoeloa Utoikamanu - the United Nations Under Secretary-General and High Representative of the Least Developed Countries, Dr Dirk Glaesser of the UNWTO, Alain St.Ange - former Seychelles Minister of Tourism, Pascal Viroleau - CEO of the Vanilla Islands, and the Mauritian Minister of Tourism, Mr Anil Gayan.

The conference offered a very impressive line-up of expert speakers, with the first plenary session and keynote address by Professor Geoffrey Lipman, President of the, Professor Lipman emphasised and heeded the call for climate change awareness and what needs to be done about the these challenges: “ In my presentation, I was trying to bring to this audience the realities of what climate change means for our world. The trends are very clear and we have been putting a blanket of carbon around the world in simple terms, and the consequence of that is that it is changing our weather patterns.”