March'24 Message from the President


Annette Cardenas

Skål International President, 2024

Ethnicity and cultural diversity play a key role in fostering a wide diversity of perspectives within an association of tourism professionals spanning 82 countries and comprising over 12,000 industry professionals.

Our diverse array of backgrounds brings a wealth of unique insights, traditions, and approaches to the table enriching our organization's collective knowledge base and enhancing its ability to cater to a global clientele.


Embracing and leveraging this diversity can yield numerous benefits for the organization and its membership, including enhanced creativity and improved problem-solving capabilities.

Interactions among professionals from various ethnicities and cultures can lead to the exchange of innovative ideas, the cultivation of cross-cultural understanding, and the development of more inclusive strategies that resonate with a broader audience, this is a benefit that our membership needs to capitalize on as part of our growth, development, and approach to young professionals to join our organization and ultimately drive success in our rapidly evolving industry.

As we move forward, it is important that we analyze all these aspects of our organization.  I invite all of you to tap into this unique benefit of our membership and use it effectively to “Build bridges for a stronger Skål”.


Annette Cardenas

Skål International President, 2024