Renewed UNWTO and Amadeus Partnership
BY
Zurab Pololikashvili
As tourism restarts, now is the time to fully realize its enormous potential to drive economic recovery and growth, to provide jobs and opportunity and to contribute, directly or indirectly, to all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Achieving this will not be easy. If we are to do so, we will need strong partnerships and for international organizations, UNWTO included, to work in harmony with governments and the private sector. We also need to think – and act – big. We cannot go backwards. Instead, tourism must embrace new ways of doing things, including new models of business and governance.
All of this is precisely at the heart of UNWTO’s partnership with Amadeus, built around the recognition of the power of innovation and transformation. Since 2007, we have worked together to monitor the continued evolution of tourism, both at the global and at the local level. We have provided data and insights to guide the sector forward and direct its path of travel.
Now, with our partnership renewed and stronger than ever, we jointly look to the future. Through the Awake Tourism Challenge, we are supporting tourism entrepreneurs from every part of the world, giving them both the expertise and the practical help they need to turn ideas into action, with a special focus on scaling-up tourism’s contribution to the SDGs. Alongside this, we are strengthening tourism’s backbone – the small and medium-sized enterprises that account for 80% of all tourism businesses worldwide. The Digital Futures Programme is allowing SMEs everywhere to create jobs now and build resilience for the years ahead.
As we continue to grow together, I am confident that UNWTO and Amadeus will always remain focused on our shared mission: to make tourism a force for good. In our work, we will continue to put people first, providing opportunities for work and education, and making tourism an unrivalled source of empowerment for youth, women, indigenous communities and for those living in rural areas. I look forward to many more years working closely with the Amadeus to keep rethinking tourism and re-imagining what our sector is capable of achieving.
Zurab Pololikashvili – Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization
Zurab Pololikashvili has been Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) since January 2018. Under his leadership, UNWTO gained unprecedented visibility and prominence within the United Nations system, strengthening bonds with other key agencies and placing tourism at the heart of the wider agenda for recovery and sustainable development.
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