WTO comes out pleased of its 15th Annual General Assembly

Following a unanimous vote that now turns the World Tourism Organization into a UN specialized institution, secretary-general Francesco Frangialli said during the course of the recently concluded WTO Annual General Assembly, “We can be twice as much pleased with the event’s results, even when there’s still one major obstacle to clear.”

The new transformation process is just one step away from coming true. Pending is the passing of the new international agreement between both organizations that must go to the floor of the UN General Assembly.

WTO delegates acclaimed the decision made by the WTO Executive Council just minutes before the moment when two dragons –tokens of happiness and power in Chinese culture- sauntered their way into the hall carrying the WTO and UN banners to celebrate the historic agreement.

”The General Assembly has knocked together an intense work schedule for the next two years that puts the WTO as one of the most active UN institutions,” Mr. Frangialli said. Despite having climbed one notch higher now as a UN entity, “the WTO has passed a solid program and a sound budget.”

”We’re particularly pleased with the unanimous support of all delegates to the Sustainable Tourism/Poverty Elimination Initiative,” Mr. Frangialli added. Part of the organization’s new plan includes the implementation of the World Tourism Ethical Committee. Diego Cordovez, a longtime Ecuadorian diplomat who had already served a prominent stint for the United Nations, was introduced by the WTO secretary-general as his shoo-in candidate to head that committee.

In the same breath, the Tourism Reactivation Committee held its fifth meeting and concluded the sector is absolutely staging a clear-cut comeback, especially in Asia. “The Tourism Reactivation Committee and its widespread international actions have played a major role in this rebound. We hope this committee will soon merge with the WTO Marketing Committee,” Mr. Frangialli noted. In the secretary-general’s view, travel warnings issued by certain governments continue to be one big unsolved problem. This topic will be extensively discussed by the WTO in the near future.

The conclusions of the Tourism Reactivation Committee have by and large confirmed the outcomes of a seminar organized by its affiliated members on the sector’s concentration and its consequences for both destinations and companies. Committee members also picked André Vallerand of Tourisme Montréal (Canada) to replace Martin Brackenbury, president of the International Federation of Tour Operators, as their new chairman. Mr. Brackenbury had been at the helm of the committee since 1995.

In Mr. Frangialli’s own words, the meeting reached consensus on most issues. Only the matter of the organization’s relations with a diversity of local groups within the tourist sector split opinions. At the request of a handful of countries, the WTO put together an Executive Committee –a working team led by France- in order to review Articles 6 and 7 of the WTO’s regulations and put forth changes in a number of topics, chiefly in those linked to the participation of WTO members.

The WTO family jumped from 140 member states to 143 with the joining of Bhutan, Latvia and Lithuania that will become full-fledged members in the year 2005. The Russian Federation was elected to preside over the Executive Committee, while Jordan and Nigeria were handpicked for the two vice presidencies all through 2004. The next powwow of the Executive Committee is scheduled for June 2004 in India.

As many as 900 delegates from 130 countries and 77 companies and enterprises directly involved in the travel industry and other related activities, turned up for the event that stretched from Oct. 17 to 24 at the Conference Center of the China World Hotel in Beijing.

The WTO’s next Annual General Assembly will take place in Dakar (Senegal) in October or November 2005.