World Tourism Organization's Quality support and trade committee addresses issue of travel advisories

The World Tourism Organization's (WTO) Quality support and trade committee met on Thursday for the first time under the new chairmanship of Portugal and addressed the issues of travel advisories, trade liberalization and health in international travel.

The challenge is to manage travel advisories in such a way as to maximize the protection of travellers and minimize the impact on travel, trade and development. While this is an issue in the hands of industrial countries today, the potential flow of travellers from developing markets indicates two-way trading considerations, the Committee stressed.

WTO Secretary-General Mr. Francesco Frangialli underlined that the governments in cooperation with the international tourism industry "have to make a step forward in implementing travel advisories in accordance with the Global Code of Ethics".

While the quality of cautionary travel advisories is undoubtedly improving with experience, there are currently a number of continuing concerns, for example lack of geographical specificity and the nature of the threat, consultation with the affected State, updating and review of the advisory, and inconsistencies amongst advisories issued by different states.

Portugal as Chairman of Committee suggested that the WTO Secretariat prepares a code of conduct, if possible in cooperation with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The issue of travel advisories will be raised again end of April at the meeting of WTO regional commission for the Middle East and North Africa in Damascus, Syria.

Furthermore, the Committee assessed the findings of a recent International symposium on liberalization and trade in tourism services, showing that trade and specifically tourism-related policies at national level are poorly coordinated and that groups of countries, generators and recipients of visitor flows, are not equitably equipped with consumer protection, competition and "sustainability" laws, thus making it difficult for countries not enjoying an adequate regulatory structure to reap the benefits of liberalization.

It is now expected that negotiators become more aware of the importance of tourism, including various modes of supply of tourism services and other factors, such as the sector's versatility and ubiquity, the mutual dependence between air transport and access to services at destinations, and the need to provide for non-discriminatory standards attached to commitments and anchored in domestic regulation.

It is also expected that the symposium lessons will be immediately used by negotiators in Geneva, especially by various regional groups in the World Trade Organization (WTO-OMC) for renewed negotiations on tourism services through its Council for Trade in Services. WTO (tourism) will prepare an "assessment tool" on liberalization and attracting investment in the tourism sector to be used by tourism officials and trade negotiators.