The upcoming seventh UNWTO & WTM Ministers’ Summit is set to discuss measures to help governments across the world to better align their tourism and aviation policies to benefit both sectors.
The Summit – How to Bridge the Gap Between Tourism and Aviation Policies – will be held on November 5, 2013 and follows the discussions at last May’s UNWTO & ATM Ministerial Forum held in Dubai.
The Summit will facilitate global tourism ministers and industry leaders to resolve all related issues for ensuring a better coordinated view, when formulating and implementing policies for tourism and aviation. It will particularly focus on:
The factors to be considered in bringing air transport and tourism policies closer together
The opportunities and challenges facing air transport development, particularly infrastructure, taxes and levies, visa facilitation and regulation
The success factors and remaining obstacles to better-coordinated policy making
The Summit comes as tourists increasingly prefer aircraft travel; in 2012, more than half of the one billion registered tourists travelled by aircraft. However, governments across the globe continue to outline transport and tourism policies entirely independently of one another, often, policies are formed that are aggressively damaging to one another. Such shortsighted measures are said to act as a major constraint on both sectors with a consequent impact on the economy.
Reed Travel Exhibitions, senior director, World Travel Market, Simon Press, said: ‘By working with the UNWTO to attract so many tourism ministers and travel bosses from around the world, WTM is in a unique position. The Summit means the world’s most influential private and public sector decision makers in tourism can meet and have meaningful dialogue over the issues that affect the industry and the potential solutions for them.
‘It is vital that those creating aviation policy work closely with those overseeing tourism to ensure both their countries and our industry are in the strongest possible position to thrive. This will ensure the steady growth we are currently enjoying continues long into the future,’ he added.
