The UN should pitch the travel industry a helping hand

At its best, tourism builds bridges of peace and understanding and tries to break down barriers of ignorance, religious, racial and cultural prejudices. The UN was supposed to represent all these fine ideals but has manifestly failed and has largely become a forum for the crudest excesses of bigotry and political point scoring. For all our shortcomings the tourism industry is closer the UN´s founding ideals than the UN, writer David Beirman concludes.

The travel industry has no choice but to engage this organization (for better or worse) but we should keep at arms length from the UN. There are global issues with which we need to engage the global political community. These include minimizing visa barriers based on nationality, suggests Beirman, author of the book “Restoring Tourism Destinations in Crisis”.

They include a global tourism approach to terrorism and travel security, facilitating air and land transport links between countries, environmental concerns, financial and economic issues, commercial overfly rights and many others.

However, it seems that all of us in the industry will achieve more on a global basis by being at arms length from the UN rather than enveloped by it. Does the WTO want to spend 50 percent of its time engaging in immature resolutions which hypocritically single out one country (either Israel or the USA) or do we want to emulate the Security Council´s veto system where the will of one powerful country (right or wrong) can prevail over the rest of the world.

Most global enterprises have easily avoided the temptation of being enveloped by the UN for one simple reason. The ludicrous and creaky wheels of UN bureaucracy cannot cope with the rapid changes in the normal business world and whilst we should have ideals, visions, social and environmental responsibilities, tourism is primarily a business. No industry is under as much pressure to change quickly and adapt to altered circumstances as the tourism industry. All those in favor of being shacked by the iron chain and lead ball of envelopment by the UN raise their hands! We´re bringing the straightjackets for you. Let´s make the WTO or its equivalent a more proactive organization which really speaks for the world tourism and hospitality industry and leave the UN to wallow in its own problems.