This World Travel Trends Report 2006-07 is based on the proceedings of the 14th Annual World Travel Monitor Forum – now more commonly known as the Pisa Forum – which was held from 1-4 November in San Giuliano Terme, near Pisa, Italy.

As usual, this year’s Forum was organised by IPK International in co-operation with the World Tourism Organization, the European Travel Commission, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the Travel Industry Association of America and the Office of Travel & Tourism Industries at the US Department of Commerce.

In addition, the 50 or so participants at the three-day meeting – all authorities on world tourism – comprised chief executives and heads of marketing and/or research of national tourism organisations (NTOs), research institutes, and private companies from travel and tourism and related sectors. These included Tourism Economics, a subsidiary of Oxford Economic Forecasting; Ascend, part of Airclaims Information and Consultancy; CISET, the International Centre of Studies on the Tourism Economy at the University of Venice; GfK Marketing and Panel Services from Benelux and Germany; the University of Sciences North-West Switzerland; and Kuoni Travel.

Participants came from more than 30 countries, representing all regions of Europe, North America, the Far East and Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Africa – as always, a multi-national, multi-disciplinary group of experts, who have given the Pisa Forum a growing reputation as the annual ‘think tank’ of the global tourism industry.

The primary objective of this year’s meeting was to analyse the state of the industry in 2006 – identifying important demand trends in key and emerging source markets – and to assess prospects for 2007. But the value of the Pisa Forum to the travel and tourism industry is that it goes much further than mere analysis, converting ‘information’ into ‘knowledge’ through discussion and debate, and proposing a basic action plan for NTOs and the industry to address the challenges facing the industry. This summary report, commissioned from IPK International by ITB Berlin, highlights some of the main conclusions of three days of intensive discussion and debate.

ITB Berlin is delighted to be closely associated with the Pisa Forum again this year and, in co-operation with IPK International, we will be looking more closely at these different issues over the next few months, in the run-up to ITB in March 2007.

 

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