The 12th Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF) returns to its birthplace in Macao from October 15 to 17, gathering political and business leaders, academics, and international organisation representatives from five continents. The event, a cornerstone of the global travel industry calendar, will centre on the theme Crisis · Resilience · Evolution – Building a Tourism Economy for a Shared Future, addressing defining questions of the era and charting a blueprint for collective progress.
MICE-plus model expands beyond the convention floor
GTEF 2025 adopts an integrated MICE + Delegation Visit model, extending programming beyond the main sessions. Delegates will join Macao world heritage culinary tours and wellness tourism site visits in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin. These excursions are designed to open concrete channels for supply chain synergy and investment execution across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, a region already seeing record air traffic—Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport recently set a six-year monthly passenger record in August.
The forum will also host business matching sessions, cultural tourism promotions, and themed dinners, providing practical platforms for deal-making and partnership building.
Five pillars and frontier topics
Standing at a new historical starting point, GTEF 2026 will align closely with five core pillars: Resilient Governance, Technology and Innovation, The New Traveller, Culture and Identity, and Sustainable Growth. These pillars are deeply integrated with Macao's development strategies, which include diversifying beyond gaming into cultural tourism and MICE.
Discussions will explore frontier topics such as global cultural tourism capital deployment, China-Europe and Asia-Pacific connectivity, mountain-dwelling tourism, and investment facilitation. The forum will also transcend traditional industry boundaries to examine emerging Tourism+ business models, including AI empowerment, educational tourism, sports IP, cultural heritage revitalisation, and experiential retail. These sessions aim to offer forward-looking guidance for global industry transformation, particularly as travel technology vendors like Accor roll out AI concierge solutions across their portfolios.
Spain and Hainan in the spotlight
Spain joins as this year's partner country, sharing its mature experience in destination refined governance, balanced regional development, and sustainable transformation. Spain's model is presented as a benchmark for the global cultural tourism industry, offering lessons in managing overtourism and promoting lesser-known regions.
Hainan Province is the featured province, highlighting China's high-standard opening-up through the launch of island-wide special customs operations for the Free Trade Port and expanded visa-free policies. Leveraging the forum, Hainan and Macao will drive substantive progress in policy complementarity and resource sharing, opening new avenues in multi-destination tourism itineraries, reciprocal visitor flows, and international MICE synergies. This collaboration is particularly timely as the Greater Bay Area continues to strengthen its position as a global tourism hub.
Organisational support and global governance
The forum is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, maintaining long-term strategic partnerships with UN Tourism and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). It also works closely with leading international tourism organisations, including the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), European Travel Commission (ETC), World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), World Tourism Alliance (WTA), International Mountain Tourism Alliance (IMTA), and Sino-International Entrepreneurs Federation (SIEF).
This broad coalition underscores the forum's role in building global governance synergy for sustainable cultural tourism development. As the industry faces challenges from staffing shortages to shifting traveller preferences, GTEF provides a critical platform for aligning strategies across public and private sectors.
With its blend of high-level dialogue, practical business matching, and immersive site visits, GTEF 2025 is set to reinforce Macao's position as a leading MICE destination while advancing the global tourism agenda.
