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UN tourism agency to assess situations affecting international travel

UN tourism agency to assess situations affecting international travel

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The World Tourism Organization’s Executive Council, at its first session governing the new United Nations specialized agency, made plans to commemorate the International Year of Sport in 2005, assess the influences affecting international travel and update its related forecasts for 2010 and beyond.

“It was a very intense, but successful meeting,” the organization’s Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli said after the meeting earlier this month in Hyderabad, India. His remarks came at the end of the body’s 73rd session, but its first since becoming a full-fledged UN agency last December.

The WTO governing body discussed the Sustainable Tourism-Eliminating Poverty initiative, which has received pledges of some $5 million from the Government of the Republic of Korea, and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism programme.

The anti-poverty initiative seeks to strengthen the partnership between the private sector and national tourism authorities in developing countries. Its major component is to promote research and identification of best practice models.