When the United Nations designated 2027 as the International Year of Sustainable and Resilient Tourism, it placed a question at the top of the global agenda: what does resilience require, and how is it built? This is at the heart of the 12th Global Tourism Economy Forum.

Resilience is not a single idea. Across the global tourism economy, it takes different forms, demands different responses, and means different things to the destinations, businesses, governments and communities that depend on the sector. The Forum brings those perspectives together, drawing on the experience of the governments, industries and organizations already working to build it.

The most resilient tourism economies are those that do not stand alone. They are connected to other sectors, markets, and communities in ways that multiply their value and deepen their foundations. The "Tourism+" model, China's framework for expanding tourism's reach and impact by integrating it with culture, technology, health, sport and rural development, is taking shape across China. One of the most comprehensive applications is in Macao's own "1+4" economic diversification strategy, which offers the global tourism sector one of its most instructive living examples of what this looks like in practice. Tourism integrated with culture, technology, health, sport and finance transforms economies and communities, creating new value chains, new visitor experiences and new forms of resilience that a standalone industry could never achieve alone. Macao is a world-class destination with first-class cultural performances, a unique bridge between China and the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds, and a city whose infrastructure and ambition place it among Asia's most distinctive meeting points. Macao brings to this Forum both a setting and model for the future. Its experience of diversification, of building a tourism economy that connects, speaks directly to the themes of GTEF 2026.

A connected tourism economy, one that links sectors, markets and communities, is inherently better able to absorb shocks, adapt to change and sustain the growth that destinations and communities depend on. The 12th GTEF examines what that connectivity requires across four dimensions:

• The Foundations: the policy, governance and investment decisions that allow destinations and economies to grow through disruption
• Technology and innovation: how AI, digital platforms and smart tourism are redefining what the sector can achieve
• People and culture: the forces that will define tourism's next chapter
• Capital in motion: where investment is heading and what it is building

This is explored through the lens that makes the GTEF unlike any other: the relationship between China's tourism economy and the world, and what understanding that relationship means for the sector.