January 05, 2005

ICTP Revamp in Response to Indian Ocean Crisis

The International Council of Tourism Partners (ICTP) has announced a restructuring in response in order to support Millennium Development Goals, WTO's Code of Ethics and the Tourism Crisis Response

From ICTP:

We have decided to revamp the International Council of Tourism Partners (ICTP) to provide a more effective forum for international co-operation in crisis response – as well as to support the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the World Tourism Organization's (WTO-OMT's) Global Code of Ethics.

As a first step, ICTP will try to ensure the rapid and widespread dissemination of accurate news and other information that can contribute to providing a clear picture of this and any other future crises, thereby contributing to allaying tourists' and industry concerns and easing, to some degree, the impact of such crises on future tourism demand. We are delighted to do this in collaboration with WTO-OMT and hope to draw support from other industry bodies. We are pleased, for example, to have reached an agreement already with the Pacific Asia Travel Association to work with us on this initiative.

The newly revamped ICTP will ... support and contribute to developing initiatives in areas such as:

  • Public/private partnership for development

  • Poverty reduction

  • Fair tourism trade

  • Triple bottom-line sustainability

  • Tourism as an instrument for peace

  • Tourism education and training

  • Enhanced security and travel facilitation

  • Disaster relief

    • ICPT will also hold 'think tanks' and will undertake research in all these critical areas.

    Any individual or organization directly or indirectly involved in Travel & Tourism – whether from the public or private sector – can become a member of ICTP. Members are asked to commit to the UN Millennium Development Goals ( www.un.org/millenniumgoals ) and WTO-OMT's Global Code of Ethics ( www.world-tourism.org/code_ethics/eng.html ), as well as promoting sustainable and responsible tourism.


    Our first public event will be held at ITB in Berlin in March, when we will hold an open session on the theme of Response to the Crisis, based on our first ICTP Report on the issue and on the findings of our online survey being launched this week.

    Thomas J Steinmetz
    Chairman
    chairman@tourismpartners.org

    Geoffrey Lipman
    President
    president@tourismpartners.org

    Visit our website: www.tourismpartners.org



    Posted by rollingrains at January 5, 2005 04:38 PM | TrackBack