International Conference on Tourism brought together more than 400 participants from 17 nationalities

In addition to Portugal, countries such as: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Croatia, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States of America.

Sob o tema " Breaking Old Barriers for a New World: Mobilizing Tourism Intelligence to Survive ", the conference aimed to explore the possibilities of transferring knowledge and intelligence to the Tourism sector.

For three days, the participants presented and discussed topics related to the transfer of knowledge between academia and the business community. 23 parallel sessions were held with the presentation of 125 academic papers, 2 workshops and 9 thematic panels with 52 speakers, where issues related to the challenges currently facing the Tourism sector were discussed.

From the program, six main speakers stood out: João Albino Silva, University of Algarve, Portugal; Steve Hood, STR, United States of America; Sara Dolnicar, University of Queensland, Australia; Renata Tomljenovic, Institute of Tourism, Croatia; Noel Scott, Sunshine Coast University, Australia; and Geoffrey Lipman, SUNx Strong Universal Network, UK. Seven “Best Papers Awards” were also selected from 53 scientific articles submitted.

The Conference also counted on the participation of several representatives of companies, associations and entities, such as the Confederation of Tourism of Portugal (CTP), Algarve Tourism Region, ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal, Association of Hotels and Tourist Enterprises of the Algarve (AHETA ), Portuguese Hospitality Association (AHP), Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR Algarve), among others.

The event was held for the first time online, but, according to the organization, “it was a challenge successfully overcome, which translates into the number of participants who over the course of three days followed this conference”.