touris

The United Nations-backed meeting on tourism has spotlighted the leading role of Governments in preventing all forms of child exploitation in the leisure travel industry.

Recording an almost four per cent increase over the same period last year, the first nine months of 2016 witnessed 956 million international tourists travelling to different parts of the world, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said today.

The promotion of safe and seamless travel should be one of the key priorities for the tourism industry this year, says the head of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The number of tourists travelling the world during the first eight months of this year reached 810 million, a more than 4 per cent increase from the same period in 2014, thanks to “robust” travel to Europe, according to the United Nations World Tourism Barometer.

International tourism rose five per cent in the first nine months of the year to reach a record 845 million worldwide, new figures out today from the United Nations reveal.

With tourism accounting for 45 per cent of the foreign income of developing countries, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the industry to play its full role in facing the three interdependent challenges of promoting sustained economic growth, ensuring social development and safeguarding the global environment.

Tourists can help reduce demand for illicit goods and services that fund organized criminal activity, the United Nations agencies working on tourism and on crime said today, announcing plans for a new public information campaign.

Thanks to rapid urbanization and rising disposable incomes in their country, Chinese tourists spent $102 billion during their travels in 2012, more than any other nationality, making the Asian nation the world’s number one tourism source market, the United Nations said today.

Despite lingering economic instability due to the global financial crisis, international tourism increased robustly over the last year with continuing growth expected throughout 2013, the United Nations today announced.

While the international tourism industry was negatively affected by the global economic crisis, the sector is expected to grow in the coming years and provide millions of new jobs, according to the United Nations labour agency.