World Tourism Organization
UN Tourism (UNWTO until 2023) is a specialized agency of the United Nations which promotes responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. Its headquarters are based in Madrid, Spain. Other offices include: a Regional Support Office for Asia and the Pacific in Nara, Japan and a Regional Office for West Asia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
UN Tourism headquarters, Madrid, Spain. | |
| Abbreviation | UN Tourism |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1 November 1975 |
| Type | United Nations specialized agency |
| Legal status | Active |
| Headquarters | Madrid, Spain |
Secretary-General | Zurab Pololikashvili |
Parent organization | United Nations |
| Website | www.unwto.org |
| Politics portal | |
UN Tourism promotes tourism and serves as a global forum for tourism policy and a source of tourism research and knowledge. It encourages Competitiveness, Innovation, Education, Investments & Digital Transformation, Ethics, Culture & Social Responsibility, Technical Cooperation, UN Tourism Academy, and Statistics.
The six official languages of UN Tourism are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism stood at an all-time high: 1 out of 10 jobs worldwide depended on tourism and international tourist arrivals reached 1.5 billion in 2019. Against a backdrop of heightened uncertainty, UN Tourism conveyed the Global Tourism Crisis Committee to guide the tourism sector as it faced up to the COVID-19 challenge.