15 September 2015, 11:16The 21st Session of the UNWTO General Assembly opened in Medellín, Colombia, in the presence of President Juan Manuel Santos (14 September 2015).
The Medellin Statement was agreed on Monday at the first joint UNWTO/ICAO High-Level Forum on Tourism and Air Transport for Development, held on the sidelines of the 21st UNWTO General Assembly in Medellin, Colombia. By choosing Bulgaria for vice president of the most prestigious forum of UNWTO recognizes conclusively the importance of Bulgaria for the development of world tourism.The General Assembly is the supreme organ of UNWTO.
She was of the view that, the development of Tourism to a large extent could be accelerated with the establishment of a desk on tourism within the African Union (AU) Structure. “Indeed, with falling prices on oil and coal, we are looking to replace the income from these smokestack industries with more environmentally friendly ones, such as tourism”.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has commended Ghana for successfully hosting the UNWTO Regional Conference on Brand Africa.
“Yet if we are to harness these benefits, tourism and air transport must address persisting divergent policies and work towards a stronger, integrated position on inter-sectorial issues such as travel facilitation, market access, taxation or infrastructure development”.
ICAO secretary-general, Dr Fang Liu, said that “great benefits” can be derived from optimising the links between air transport and tourism.
Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, President of the Council of the global Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) highlighted the close relationship between tourism and air transport: “In 2014, some 53% of tourists travel by air to reach their worldwide destinations”.
“Ultimately, the advancements of the sector, the arrival figures and the foreign exchange earnings will be meaningless unless tourisms success is uplifting our communities, generating jobs and business opportunities and creating better lives for our people, ” said Minister McNeill.