What this panel brings is an opportunity to create a dialogue for a sustainable urban and tourist agenda from location to location with various stakeholders: the tourism sector, the public authorities, and festival makers. We together create a tourist destination. Heritage is important, but also the vibrant offer of a city “eye-to-eye”. An instrument for this meaningful joint responsibility between festivals and the tourism sector is needed (with measurable and non-measurable assessment mechanisms).

Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, Trustee of the Gulbenkian Foundation, will touch upon the opportunities of a deeper collaboration between the world of tourism and the world of the arts and arts festivals. This is seen in a long-term sustainable development where the 3 parts of this equation - the arts (festivals & artists) – the cities – the tourism stakeholders - work together in their clear synergies so that ultimately:

• the cities have an intelligent, educated approach to their artistic creation & heritage that displays the best of the cities' creativity in a sustainable way that improves the experiences of its citizens and its visitors,
• the tourism stakeholders can support and promote the uniqueness of what each location has to offer as opposed to a globalisation of “mass tourists with coloured bracelets ticking their check lists of 'must-see' places",
• the artists / festivals have an opportunity to produce high quality artistic objects (and have the means to really invest in “artistic research”) as opposed to the pressure of going mainstream to attract new audiences.

Reactions facilitated by Geert Cochez, Deputy CEO of visit.brussels, in conversation with:

• Jorge Rebelo de Almeida,  President Vila Galé
  
• Barbara Gessler, Head of Unit Creative Europe European Commission, Directorate General for Education and Culture
• Vincent Nijs, Tourism Research Manager & Chief Marketing Officer | Research & Strategy Department of VISITFLANDERS
• Volker Hassemer, Chairman of the Board of Stiftung Zukunft Berlin 
• Sir Jonathan Mills, Director of the Edinburgh International Culture Summit