International Organizations and Sustainable Tourism – WTO 1

 

International Organizations and Sustainable Tourism – WTO 1

 

Ciao!

We continue our journey through international organizations and sustainable tourism.

After the posts devoted to the EU and UN, today I will shortly introduce the history of an organization of paramount importance… (Suspense)

Ladies and Gentlemen: the World Tourism Organization

 

Speaking of such a pivotal organization gives the chance to briefly recall when the need was felt to unite strengths and give birth to an international organization for tourism.

 

Tourism as an industry attracted the interest of governments and individuals since the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, this interest took concrete form in the first international organization dedicated to tourism. The International Congress of Official Tourist Traffic Associations -- Congrès international des associations officielles de trafic touristique, founded in the 90’s in The Hague. This step was followed by the foundation of the International Union of Official Tourist Propaganda Organizations (IUOTPO) -- Union internationale des organismes officiels de propagande touristique (UIOOPT),in the following decade.

 

The two cornerstones of tourism -reachability and transposition, and visibility and information- were laid and made clear from the onset.

 

The war events heavily affected reachability and transposition, as for visibility, simply tourism was not in sight as a viable, desirable option. Human mobility in the Second World War is the result of very different urgencies than tourism.

 

It is therefore necessary to wait for the end of the Second War for the tourism sector, like all the others, to literally re-emerge from the rubble of the destroyed, depopulated and impoverished cities.

 

IUOTPO restored itself when the requisites for tourism were there again. We all know them to be security, freedom of movement and -the corollary of both- cash availability and a common understanding of leisure as an important element of life.

All these aspects are inherently not compatible with the state of war.

 

The IUOTPO turned into International Union of Official Travel Organizations (IUOTO) -- Union internationale des organismes officiels de tourisme (UIOOT), in 1947, in Paris. This is the last re-organization that precedes the birth of the current World Tourism Organization (WTO), the result of a vote of its assembly in 1970. 

The vote became operational after 4 years, when the 51 member states completed the rectification processes. The organization, since 2003 and on the initiative of its general council and the United Nations, has become a UN agency.