Tourism Government Officials and Academics meet

The Joint Meeting of the WTO Executive Council and the WTO Education Council will bring together for the first time government officials and academics from all regions of the world.

At the initiative of the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, Francesco Frangialli, the Executive Council (the maximum permanent body) of this intergovernmental Organization and its Education Council will hold this first historic meeting on 3 and 4 June, at the Madrid Congress Hall.

The World Tourism Organization, with the Tourism Administrations of 141 countries as member States, is one of the few intergovernmental institutions in the world which includes representatives from civil society in its membership. Within this framework is the WTO Education Council which counts with members from more than 80 universities, business schools and other training and research centres with programmes in tourism. To belong to the Education Council these institutions must have obtained the WTO TedQual Quality Certification by successfully completing an independent audit of their programmes.

In this context, the historic Joint Meeting of the WTO Executive Council and the Education Council on 3 and 4 June is aimed at maximizing the benefit from this unique academic presence in an intergovernmental organization and at specifying the mission of the Education Council and its present functions as well as those it will take on in the future within the World Tourism Organization.

The technical sessions of this Joint Meeting will be comprised of two panels made up of members from the Executive Council and the Education  Council. The first panel on Tourism Analysis will concentrate on Information Systems (including the Tourism Satellite Account, Market Intelligence, the Tourism Labour Market Observatory, etc.). The second panel will cover  priority issues in current Tourism Policy, such as Security, Health, the Management of Crises and Emergency Situations, Sustainability, etc. During these sessions, government  representatives and academics will have the opportunity to discuss these issues, to exchange experiences and points of view and to establish concrete action programmes and mechanisms to implement them.

The Joint Meeting will conclude with decisions on procedures for the permanent participation of the Education Council in the bodies and structure of WTO, especially in the Executive Council and the  Programme and the Budget Committees. Academic representatives from the WTO.TedQual Certified Institutions worldwide have played an important role  in the preparation of this Joint Meeting.