IX International Tourism Congress

The School of Tourism and Maritime Technology (Polytechnic Institute of Leiria), in Peniche, Portugal, promotes the ITC’17 – IX International Tourism Congress, on 29-30 November 2017, with the theme “The Image and Sustainability of Tourism Destinations”, aiming to present and discuss national and international experiences about tourism valuation policies as far as territories, competitiveness, sustainability and promotion are concerned.

In the last few decades, the travel and tourism sector has become one of the main activities of the worldwide economy. According to the statistics of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) the international tourist arrivals reached 1.087 billion in 2013, after topping the 1 billion mark in 2012. On the other hand, the tourist income has grown from 1.042 billion USD in 2011 to 1.159 billion in 2013. Accordingly, with the growing demand on tourism destinations as well as with tourism becoming a major economic force worldwide, there is tremendous interest in developing tourism sustainably with a mutual aim of enhancing the customers’ experience as well as maintaining tourism destinations. Furthermore, due to the escalating tourism destination competitiveness, forming a unique, attractive image for tourism destinations is becoming an area of developing interest amongst tourism researchers and practitioners.