WTO stresses importance of co-operation with EU

The Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization Francesco Frangialli has called for greater co-operation with the European Union and its member states.

Addressing the European Tourism Forum in Brussels on Tuesday, Mr Frangialli presented the current tourism situation in the world in general and in Europe in particular, emphasizing the threat of terrorism and major structural changes.

Mr Frangialli said: “At a time when the World Tourism Organization itself is becoming increasingly visible to the international community and has embarked on conversion into a specialized agency of the United Nations, I would like to say that it is ready and willing to enhance its co-operation with the European Union and its member states”.

The WTO Secretary-General analysed the increasing frequency of terrorist attacks, which have directly targeted tourists in Djerba in Tunisia in April; in Bali, Indonesia in October; in Santa Marta, Colombia, in November; and most recently, in Mombassa, Kenya.

He said the Bali bombing was the most serious attack on foreign visitors in the history of world tourism.

“These factors have worsened the climate of fear and uncertainty among travellers and augmented the impression that no destination anywhere in the world is completely safe any longer. If this perception becomes ingrained in the minds of potential travel consumers, it would give serious cause for concern about the future: the crisis, by definition temporary, would give way to a state of permanent danger in which attacks aimed at innocent visitors who are targeted in conflicts that have nothing to do with them may occur anywhere at any time”.

He said the repercussions of acts of terrorism are both direct and indirect: direct insofar as they obliterate the desire to travel and indirect insofar as they contribute to delaying the awaited economic recovery, thereby lowering demand as a whole, including demand for travel.

On the supply side, he said these same factors have led to higher security and insurance costs, which penalizes the tourism industry and not just airlines and airports. At the same time, increased volatility in the financial markets contributes to the unfavourable overall climate.

“However, let us not draw mistaken conclusions from this series of difficulties. Taken as a whole, the data do not necessarily point to a lasting slump in international tourism activity, in that potential demand for travel remains strong and the need to travel does not contract. WTO will be publishing its initial estimates a month from now, but it is far from certain that 2002 will close with negative growth in arrivals or even receipts.”

Speaking about Europe’s dominance in the world’s tourism industry, Mr Frangialli stated that the fact that Europe is continuing to lose market share in terms of both financial and physical flows should not be disregarded. Its share of receipts is gradually falling, and in future Europe will only be taking in a little less than 58 per cent of total arrivals worldwide.

“Europe has lost about 7 per cent of world market share over a period of 20 years. Acording to WTO’s preliminary forecasts, unless it reacts vigorously, Europe will, by 2020, account for no more than 46 per cent of the total.

“Clearly, this development does not in the main reflect a specific decline but rather the globalization of tourism”.

Also speaking at the forum, Mr Geoffrey Lipman, advisor to the WTO Secretary General on trade and services, raised voice about Europe’s global leadership responsibilities towards the world’s major problem of poverty elimination. He said wisely developed tourism is the world’s poorest countries’ biggest collective development and social equality tool. It generates directly and indirectly a higher quantity of GDP, jobs and investment than most other economic activities.

Mr Lipman firstly urged the European and national travel and tourism strategies to reflect a positive support for the external dimension and accord it a high priority.

Mr. Lipman said: “It is important for us as Europeans and as global citizens”. He also called for bringing to individual and collective attention the ST-EP project, launched in Johannesburg by WTO as the global tourism leader and UNCTAD as the UN body responsible for the world’s poorest countries.

“ST-EP seeks to link Sustainable Tourism and Elimination of Poverty. It will attract funding, from non traditional tourism related sources, stimulate new research into linkages between tourism and poverty and seed fund model projects for SME’s and micro-enterprises in poorer countries. Thereby linking our own Global Code of Tourism Ethics with the UN Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015.”