News

This year ACTO will participate in the World Tourism Day initiative, a campaign organized by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) to heighten the awareness of the international community about the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic values. World Tourism Day will be hosted by Peru and its theme will revolve around the response of the tourism sector to the challenges of climate change.

The theme “Tourism responds to the challenge of climate change” will contribute to the worldwide initiative to begin implementation of the Davos Declaration. That Declaration derives from the close connection between the tourism sector and climate, its global social and economic importance, as well as its place in sustainable development.

World Tourism Day is observed annually on September 27 coinciding with the anniversary of the approval in 1970 of the Statutes of the World Tourism Organization. The focus in 2008 on climate change is in keeping with the active support of the World Tourism Organization for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and is in harmony with the priority themes of ACTO.

For this reason ACTO will participate in the “Think Tank” organized by the World Tourism Organization and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru. The event will take the form of an open exchange on the question of climate change, specifically to identify measures which can be adopted over the short and long terms for adaptation and mitigation, as well as to employ new technologies and secure financing.

ACTO will use the opportunity to highlight the activities planned in the context of Destination Amazonia Year 2009 which are in support of the theme and which can constitute future approaches to the challenges of climate change.