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Tourism – celebrating diversity, linking cultures

and promoting peace and understanding

Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General, World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

e live in a diverse, interdependent and inter-

connected world in which every day we

are reminded that we need to live together

in peace, despite existing differences in cultures and

fundamental beliefs. Yet, the question remains – how

to build such peaceful world; how to promote cross-

cultural dialogue and mutual understanding in an

environment marked by rising intolerance and tension,

often exasperated by increasingly complex inequality

and interdependence on shared resources.

With over 1 billion people crossing international borders

every year – generating more than US$3 billion every day

in export earnings – tourism has become one of the major

socioeconomic activities of our time, representing 9 per

cent of global gross domestic product and 30 per cent of

the world’s exports of services, and creating one in every

11 jobs. Never before have so many people travelled to so

many places. Few places on the planet have escaped the

curiosity of the traveller and few are now unreachable.

Yet, tourism is much more than its immense numbers;

tourism is what happens behind these numbers, the daily

exchange of stories, experiences and beliefs. It is the direct

encounter between people from different backgrounds and

ways of life, the millions of conversations that take place as

visitors and hosts come together; it is the new language we

Image: Honor Heindl/World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

The contribution of tourism to peace can enable our sector to become a more effective player in promoting multicultural respect and social justice

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