10th UNAT meeting: 180 participants to talk about the social utility of holidays.

It was in Carqueiranne, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region in France, that the 10th edition of the "Rendez-Vous de l'UNAT" (National Union of Tourism Associations) was held on 23-24 May on the theme "Public utility of Tourism, social utility of the holidays".

Bringing together more than 180 representatives mainly from the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), this meeting - inaugurated in the presence of the Secretary of State for Tourism, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne- was first of all an opportunity to focus on the future of the right to holidays with the presentation of preliminary results of a survey carried out by IFOP on the French and holidays. Holiday mentions, departure rates, search criteria for a holiday destination, the frequency of departures and memories of holidays from youth are all questions dealt with in this survey, the final results of which will soon be available.  

Among the topics discussed during the plenary sessions and workshops are the right to holidays and access to culture, the place of sustainability and solidarity in social tourism, the stays of children and young people as a lever vitality for the territories and the importance of social and solidarity tourism as a driving force for territorial development. On this last point, the speakers underlined the economic contribution of the holiday villages in several rural regions often in the grip of a decline in industrialization to be compensated by an increase in the supply of services but also the social contribution that is regularly characterized by the provision of equipment for local populations. The economic contribution was also put forward by the National Agency for Holiday Voucher (ANCV), whose social programs in 2018, benefited 258,300 people with economic spinoffs estimated at 87 million euros on entire French territory.

UNAT, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, is a network of 260 holiday organizers, 30 leisure organizations and more than 1,500 establishments (235,000 beds) accommodating around 6 million holidaymakers per year for 20 million nights, for a total turnover of 1.2 billion euros.