Sandra Carvao Deputy Head of the Department of Mercado and Promotion Techniques of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

Keynote Presentation Topic

"Looking back...preparing the future!"

In the late nineties, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) published its long term forecast, Tourism 2020 Vision, a look into what the future would hold based on research carried out in 1997/98. Ten years after, we will look into how the world tourism has changed since those days. What went ‘right’ and want went ‘wrong’. Which ‘possibilities’ did turn into a reality? Which trends materialized and to what extent? Has technology impacted travel more than expected? Is China on the road to become the world’s top destination? Are travellers more environmental friendly? Some of the major determinants and influences of tourism development identified in UNWTO’s Tourism 2020 Vision such as economy, technology, facilitation and safety, demography, globalisation and localisation, social-environmental awareness, living and working environments, the ‘Experience’ economy and marketing will be put into perspective. Understating how trends have evolved will help all tourism stakeholders to better prepare for the future.

Biography

Sandra joined the UNWTO in 2003 and her main fields of work, in the area of market studies, are the statistical analysis of worldwide and regional trends of the markets, particularly the UNWTO’s World Tourism Barometer project, and investigation into the sending markets, especially emerging markets such as China. In the area of promotion of the tourism, her field of work includes among other things assessing the marketing activities of the national tourism organizations, an area in which she has run projects in various member countries of the UNWTO. Before joining the UNWTO Sandra Carvão held the post of markets manager in the Portuguese National Tourism Office based in Lisbon, where she began her career and where she was in charge of the external markets, the United Kingdom and Ireland and the Central and Eastern European markets. Sandra has a degree in International Relations, in the branch of Economics, from the Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Políticas of the Universidade Técnica in Lisbon. Sandra also has a postgraduate degree in Marketing from the Complutensian University of Madrid.