In what may be seen as global recognition to the importance of the tourism industry, the United Nations has agreed recently to upgrade the status of the World Tourism Organisation from an UN-related agency to an UN-specialised agency. The elevation means WTO will have the same status as UN bodies like UNESCO, World Health Organisation and International Labour Organisation (ILO). The Committee on Negotiations for the Conversion of WTO into a specialized agency of the UN gave its full approval to the text of the draft agreement between WTO and UN. It also recommended that the Executive Council approve it in the same way so that the General Assembly of the UN and WTO can approve it in the course of their sessions.

Announcing the agreement at the recently held BoAo Forum in Hong Kong, Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of WTO, said, “It is a recognition for the tourism sector in general, that now the international community is conscious of the importance of this sector which is worth US$480 billion a year.”

The transformation, he said, would be the focus at the annual general meeting of WTO to be held in Beijing in mid-October, 2003, where around 1000 delegates from more than 130 countries are expected to participate.

The elevated status, according to Frangialli, shows that the global community has realised that tourism is just as important as health and education. Hence, to better appreciate the contribution of tourism to a national economy WTO with the help of WTTC, Eurostat and other organisations have developed the Tourism Satellite Account. “It is a methodology that gives a picture of the weight of tourism within a national economy - what tourism represents in terms of the percentage of the GDP, percentage of the value-added, number of jobs, in the balance of payments - all the indicators put together in a coherent manner. The Commission of Statistics of the United Nations has agreed upon its specification and definition. We are now promoting this instrument and in Manila, we organised a seminar on the TSA to provide assistance to our members,” said Frangialli.