44 (0)20 7824 7157-
How time flies when you are enjoying yourself! The 5th blog from Marrakech
Posted on November 14, 2016
The Koutoubia Mosque at sunrise
As usual it is quite hard to know exactly what is going on at the high level talks except for what one can glean from websites, the daily bulletin and so on but it is also necessary to find the time to read them! The first week has rushed by and we are already into day one of the second. This is the week when the high level talks should go up a notch with the arrival of the Heads of State.
There are rumours circulating that we can expect Presidents Obama and Putin to arrive within the next days. There are also suggestions that the talks so far have not made a great deal of progress and since this is supposed to be the COP of Action, as we are reminded by posters on every lamppost near the Centre, let us hope for better things to come
Happily the team members have all arrived, Chloe, Cathy and Geoff and after a short briefing they dispersed from our stand to orientate themselves, to attend relevant side events and distribute leaflets about our own side event.
Saturday, which already seems an age ago, was another day with the 10 YFP for Sustainable Tourism Development – on this occasion the Annual Conference of Partners. Perhaps the key point to come out of this was that the funds available for projects meeting the sustainable tourism development criteria could attract grant aid and would not just be available to partners, as used to be the case, but to their members also.
Javier presenting at the 10YFP
There are, inevitably, priority areas with developing countries the beneficiaries, but it could be useful over time for relevant INTO members. I will be looking further at this and will be meeting the Programme staff in Paris in the near future to take matters further.
In discussion with Javier Losada (Tesouros de Galicia) we spoke about his plan to bid to host the next Annual Conference in Santiago de Compostela with support from INTO. This would certainly help to ensure that destinations were more than just hotels and put tangible and intangible cultural heritage firmly on the radar of the tourist industry.
Sustainable transport in Marrakech
More intangible heritage
What a charmer (Oliver Maurice and friend)
Yesterday, Sunday, was a welcome day off much of which was spent preparing my power point presentation for Tuesday’s side event. I did have time to visit the Medina and the nearby Souk and take in the hustle and bustle at the centre of Marrakech; I even found myself being forced to have a couple of snakes wrapped round my neck, having my photo taken with my camera and then, inevitably, being forced to pay a ransom for the privilege! C’est la vie!Oliver Maurice 14 November 2016
