International Organizations and Sustainable Tourism – WTO 2

 Ciao!

As spring approaches, we continue our virtual tour of International Organizations and sustainable tourism. 

After the first tip about the World Tourism Organization (WTO)
today I devote a second short short post to this IO you cannot really neglect!

The structure of the WTO in comparable to that of most of the intergovernmental international organizations: a secretariat, an executive council, a general assembly, and specialized committees.

The secretariat is responsible for implementing programs and meeting the needs of members and affiliates. The secretariat team is headed by a Secretary General, who currently is Zurab Pololikashvili, and it is located in Madrid. There is also a branch office in Osaka, Japan, which is a support office for the Asia-Pacific area, and which is financially supported by the Japanese government. The secretariat also has an office in Geneva which acts as a liaison with the UN system, with the International Trade Organization and as a diplomatic representation to the Swiss Confederation.

The Executive Council is the governing body of the Organization, and has the task of maintaining the work of the WTO within its purposes and budget. The board has two annual sessions and it is a body elected by the Assembly. Numerically it is made up of one elected representative for every five permanent members plus one Spanish citizen, by virtue of the fact that Spain is the host country.

The General Assembly is composed by representatives of all member countries and associates. It is in session every two years, and during these two-year sessions it approves the budget and debates the fundamental issues of international tourism. The General Assembly elects the general representative every four years.

The specialized committees have roles related to the functioning of the Organization and to macro-purposes that are considered inherent to the mandate of the WTO. They are the Program Committee, the Budget and Finance Committee, the Statistics Committee and the Tourist Account Committee, the Market and Competitiveness Committee, the Applications and Affiliations Committee. There are also the Committee for Sustainable Tourism Development, the World Committee for Ethical Tourism, the Committee for the Reduction of Poverty.

The official languages of the organization are Arabic, French, English, Russian and Spanish. The official web site is https://www.unwto.org/ and in these troubled times I strongly recommend to keep an eye on it, and to join its newsletter!