More than 250 French and Spanish actors from the Pyrenees, including Thierry Percie from the ARPE Occitanie (Treasurer of Euromontana), attended the symposium in Bagnères de Luchon on the 1st and 2nd December 2016. The two-days event gathered about fifty mountain hut guards, main owners and managers of shelters, mountain professionals and many institutional partners and representatives of mountain users interested in high mountain tourism. This was a unique meeting for representatives of this sector of activity in high mountains, at the scale of a European cross-border massif.
The highlight of the colloquium was the brainstorming on proposals of action to develop. There were 19 working groups with voluntarily participants from different origins. This work in small groups had a very positive feedback as it allowed everyone to express themselves with a high quality of listening. The reports of these working groups highlighted a few common points and, above all, highlighted a wide range of recommendations that cover all the concerns related to shelters in general and in particular in the Pyrenees mountains.
The public authorities representants concluded the colloquium by giving a favorable opinion for the implementation of a “mountain shelter” plan throughout the Pyrenean chain, starting from the following points: improvement of shelters and other altitude accommodation, improvement of equipment and itineraries without fearing innovation, targeting specific activities and experiences around each shelter, in relation with the local economic actors and taking into account the various potential customers, better communicating to attract young people and families, …
A forthcoming symposium will bring together the mountain actors on this subject in 2018 in Aragon to take stock of the progress of this plan.
For more information, please read the proceedings of the symposium which have just been published in April 2017.
25 April 2017
