Next meeting of the UNWTO Commission to be held in Egypt in the second quarter of 2018
By Akram Medhat
Egypt has won membership of the World Tourism Organization's Executive Council for the Middle East region for 4 years by a majority of votes, during the 43rd meeting of the organization's commission held today in the city of Chengdu, China, as part of the 22nd session of the UNWTO General Assembly, held under the title "Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals" at the city's International Conference Center from September 11 to 16.
During the meeting, Egypt was chosen to host the commission's 44th meeting in the second quarter of next year, 2018. It was also agreed that Egypt and Saudi Arabia would take part in the committee dedicated to preparing the final draft of the convention on tourism ethics.
In his speech, Egyptian Minister of Tourism Yehia Rashed stressed the importance of joining efforts, cooperation by all and working as one team to raise the value of tourism in the Arab world.
For his part, Dr. Taleb Rifai, the outgoing Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, expressed his happiness at holding this 22nd session of the UNWTO General Assembly in China, which has become the world's top source of tourism, with about 130 million tourists traveling abroad from it. It is also the leading country in domestic tourism, recording 4.4 billion domestic trips, while in terms of inbound tourism China receives about 170 million tourists.
Rifai explained that this session of the General Assembly is the largest in years in terms of the number of participants, with 132 participating delegations and 75 ministers, noting that many important issues concerning the tourism sector will be discussed during the meetings and that a new Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization will be chosen.
