World Tourism Organization

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO ) (World Tourism Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Madrid (Spain) and approximately 100 employees.

Objective

The UNWTO, understood as an international forum for tourism policy and Fokalstelle for intergovermentale communication, the aim of the development of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism to contribute to economic development, international understanding, peace, prosperity and respect for human rights. Focus is the promotion of tourism in developing countries, taking into account the Millennium Development Goals, sustainable development concepts and the Global Code of Ethics in Tourism.

The best-known publications are the annual tourism statistics that reflect the cross-border international tourism. For this purpose, accompanying the UNWTO aims to harmonize international tourism statistics. The UNWTO recommendations serve for example as a basis for the statistics of the OECD and the European Union.

Significant also are the UNWTO activities within the project Sustainable Tourism for Eliminating Poverty (ST -EP), which goes back to an initiative to reduce poverty through tourism within the framework of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.

Formation

The UNWTO originated from an international congress, which took place in 1925. After the Second World War, the World Tourism Organization, the International Union of Official Travel Organisations ( IUOTO ) was called and moved its headquarters from The Hague to Geneva. Since 1975 it is officially called the World Tourism Organisation and has since 1 January 1976 is headquartered in Madrid. After the preliminary integration of the UNWTO in the United Nations Development Programme UNDP in 1976 and the signing of a cooperation agreement with the United Nations in 1976, the UNWTO has been assigned the status of a UN specialized agency in 2003. In 2013 155 countries and 450 organizations were members of UNTWO (English)

Reference

The World Tourism Organization is often abbreviated to the WTO instead of UNWTO. However, this should be avoided to avoid confusion with the World Trade Organization ( WTO).