Association

The Alpine Town of the Year Association is an association of Alpine towns that have been awarded the title of “Alpine Town of the Year”. The title commends an Alpine town for its particular commitment to the implementation of the Alpine Convention and is awarded by an international Jury.

The association’s activities are organised around three poles:

Support for each city holding the title 'Alpine Town of the Year' for: project development, organisation of its annual programme as selected town, information and training on the objectives of the Alpine Convention.
To promote the exchange of information and experiences between the 'Alpine Towns of the Year'.
To develop and coordinate projects enabling experimentation in member cities and cooperation between cities and with other key partners in the Alpine space.

The principal concern of the Alpine Convention is to combine measures for nature conservation in the Alpine region with sustainable, future-oriented development of the regions themselves. Nature and culture, ecology and economy collide head on, and it is the stated principal objective of the “Alpine Town of the Year” Association to communicate this idea to the population at large. While the Alps are still clearly rural in terms of surface area, the population – and with it the economy – is already predominantly urban. Given that around two thirds of the population in the Alps live in urbanised regions, which in turn represent around 40% of the total Alpine area, Alpine towns play a key role in filling the Alpine Convention with life.