Roadmap for Global Tourism Recovery Endorsed
Tuesday, 07 Oct, 2009
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Man in the hot seat – Taleb Rifai UNWTO Secretary General ad interim
Tourism leaders from more 140 countries met to endorse a roadmap for recovery in a bid to boost global travel as the industry faces the worst slump in modern history.
The initiative from the UNWTO is being launched as 700 delegates gather for the 18th session of the global tourism body’s General Assembly in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The message calls on world leaders to prioritize tourism in the economic agenda and use it as a vehicle to create and sustain jobs and to use tourism as a method to move into a green world economy. Tourism leaders from over a hundred and forty countries have endorsed a roadmap for recovery in a bid to boost global travel as the industry faces the worst slump in modern history.
It is said that efforts to make tourism more sustainable can help the world address climate change, achieve the Millennium Development Goals and build a greener economy
International arrivals declined by four per cent in July this year and seven per cent in June.
To date, over 70 countries have already implemented measures to stimulate tourism.
Now the UNWTO is calling on world leaders to prioritize tourism and embrace its roadmap for recovery. While global earnings from the sector has been suffering slightly more than arrivals, as consumers trade down, stay closer to home and travel for shorter periods.
Recommendations made by the UNWTO such as travel facilitation, tax rebates or credits have already been employed by many countries.
Tourism provides more than 75 million jobs globally and 30% of the world’s exports, worth a trillion dollars a year. It accounts for up to 45% of the total exports of services in developing countries. A sharp reduction in business activity, disposable income and a rise in unemployment, particularly in key source markets have hit tourism hard this year.
"Tourism is among the major socio-economic phenomena of our times, and rightly occupies an important place on the United Nations agenda,” said UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon in a message presented to the assembly.
“We’re addressing world leaders and decision makers, heads of state and prime ministers, ministers of finance, trying to highlight the importance of tourism in facts and figures and in principles and statements that could stick in to their minds so a major challenge of rolling it out would be promotion,” said Taleb Rifai, secretary general ad interim, United Nations World Tourism Organization.
“The message is that our sector can make significant contribution to the international efforts to sustain and stimulate global recovery and ultimately to move to the green economy,” added Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary general.
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