Mediterranean Tourism Forum – The BRAIN

20 Jun, 2022 by FIJET Academy Team

Malta, a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, has been a successful pioneer, a leader and a supporter of the tourism of this wonderful area by organising the Mediterranean Tourism Forum. The Forum is organised by the Mediterranean Tourism Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry for Tourism, and the MHRA the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association. It has already been recognised as the most important conference about the Mediterranean Tourism in the world. The 7th edition of Mediterranean Tourism Forum was organised on the 13rd-14th June in Malta after a long pandemic break.

This year, the theme of the Forum was the BRAIN – the Business Research and Innovation Network. Because in the period we are going through there are many challenges for the tourism shareholders like the pandemic, war, climate change, global inflation etc. Therefore, tourism shareholders need to learn to use their brains to rethink the way they work and live to create better and effective solutions.

As usual, the Forum was a great opportunity for the participants to meet new people from various fields related to tourism. It brought together well known and successful people like creative thinkers, politicians, researchers, academicians, business leaders and tourism writers. The topics of the masterclasses varied on main issues such as; sustainable growth of tourism, hospitality, eco-friendly tourism, post Covid19 travel issues, climate change etc.

The distinctive characteristic of this forum is that it is like a stage where new ideas are presented and focuses on important issues. The successful organisers of the Forum invited not only the best actors of travel, tourism and hospitality sector, but also people from other economic and social segments such as, health care, technology, education and the environment. The president of Mediterranean Tourism Foundation Tony Zahra stated that the Forum always puts into practice the principle of Co-Opetition- that is; the competitors cooperate because they see the importance of it, which shows that the Forum achieves its purpose.

The Forum was a great success with the participation of 1324 delegates from 30 different countries. Approximately 40 people attended each masterclass discussions. Prior to the masterclasses, the Think Tank sessions were also very crowded where participants had interactive discussions about many topics.
The Plenary session of the Forum was moderated by Rajan Datar from BBC and Nikoletta Kritikou from Euronews. Jill Hellman, Chief Innovator&Cornell University lecturer, Mehmet Binay, Film Producer and Storyteller also participated in this session.

The recent situation in global tourism, what’s happening in the world, what might happen in the future and how sustainability can be formed and kept were among the issues discussed. Another important discussion was about the contribution of technological improvements and the use of robots in the tourism sector. The robot, Pina was highly interesting for the audience as it represented the new era of Metaverse.

The Algerian Touaregs’ musical presentation of their culture was very interesting and the motto that they teach to their children was like a lesson to everyone. “Don’t Stop, Keep Going”

The outstanding Climate Activist Micheal Haddad arose great hope for the future of the world. What makes him outstanding is that after a spinal injury, his body unfortunately 75% paralyzed from the chest down. But he never lost his hope and continued to struggle. All he wants now is to draw attention to Climate Change problem of our planet. He is a person with incredibly strong willpower and dedication to serve for the good humanity. He definitely is and should be a role model for all of us.