UNWTO STRENGTHENS MEDIA PROGRAMMES

ETURBO NEWS & TRAVELMOLE BECOME LAUNCH PARTNERS

Madrid, 29 August 2007 – UNWTO is strengthening its media partners programme to support its major events. It announced that eTurboNews and TravelMole had joined forces to help support the Organization with a leading edge communications platform.

The programme will start with UNWTO’s major conferences on Climate Change at Davos, Switzerland (October 1-3) and London, UK (November 13), as well as for the Organization’s General Assembly in Cartagena, Colombia (November 22-29).

The support will cover three broad areas:

• Electronic promotion and online coverage of events involving strategic global tourism issues.
  
• Helping to engage the industry at large, in support of UNWTO actions to respond to major humanitarian crises.
  
• Promotion of strategic tourism and humanitarian response issues at major industry trade fairs.

UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General Geoffrey Lipman said “We welcome this initiative from our friends at eTurboNews and TravelMole, which allows us to strengthen our communications channels in areas of critical strategic importance to the industry as well as to better help the sector play its part in response to the humanitarian crises which affect tourists and destinations around the word.”

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz, Publisher and Head of the eTurboNews Group, said “I have long been a believer in tourism as an important contributor to global social and economic well being and eTurboNews has always supported UNWTO actions designed to benefit the industry as a whole and to position it within the UN Family. So I am delighted to link our networks with my friend Charlie Kao and his TravelMole Team to strengthen that support. I hope that other media colleagues will join our efforts”.

Charlie Kao Publisher of TravelMole added that “We increasingly live in an electronic, web based communications world. Together with eTurbo, we plan email and web site coverage with video, web-cast and pod-cast projection. By providing capacity in this area, TravelMole can help the industry more effectively participate, deliver and project its contribution”.

Mr. Lipman concluded that “The launch of the programme at the Davos Climate Change Conference, reflects both strategic and humanitarian areas of focus and the London Ministerial helps us to project at one of the world’s most significant Tourism Fairs. We are particularly pleased at the support that this gives to our emergency response portal http://www.sos.travel/. We look forward to building on this programme with other media partners”

For further information please contact:

UNWTO Media Section
T: (34) 91-567-8194 / (34) 91-567-8100 / F: (34) 91-567-8218
[email protected] – http://www.unwto.org/