The Diplomat
The UNWTO considers investment as “one of the key priorities for tourism recovery and its future growth and development”, according to its website on the occasion of the celebration of World Tourism Day 2023 in Riyadh on 27-28 September.
The UNWTO stresses the “need for more and better targeted investment for people, planet and prosperity“. It proposes “new and innovative solutions and not just traditional investments” to promote and underpin economic growth and productivity.
World Tourism Day 2023 will be a call to action by UNWTO for the international community, governments, multilateral financial institutions, development partners and private sector investors to unite around a new tourism investment strategy.
The UN agency states that “the global disruption that COVID-19 brought to the tourism sector provides an opportunity to redefine and recalibrate the direction and discourse adopted in tourism investment in order to better support the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals”.
UNWTO stresses that more and better targeted investment, both traditional and non-traditional, is needed “to enable tourism to realise its enormous potential to deliver opportunities for people, build resilience, accelerate climate action and greater sustainability for the planet, and bring inclusive prosperity around the pillars of innovation and entrepreneurship”.
The celebration of International Tourism Day aims to highlight the vital need to invest in projects that work for people (by investing in education and skills), the planet (by investing in sustainable infrastructure and accelerating green transformation) and prosperity (by investing in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship).
Tourism is one of the world’s largest employers. In 2019, the sector employed one in 10 people worldwide and has proven to be a tool for economic diversification and a primary driver of employment with a multiplier effect on other sectors contributing to rural development.
In rural areas, tourism can particularly benefit traditionally disadvantaged groups, such as women – who constitute 54% of workers in the tourism sector compared to 39% in the economy as a whole – youth and indigenous peoples.
Tourism is also an easily accessible sector for micro and small enterprises and the self-employed, who make up a considerable part of the tourism sector and entrepreneurship at the community level in general. However, in emerging destinations, 50% of young people are unable to work in tourism due to lack of opportunities, resources or access to formal training.
UNWTO estimates that between now and 2030, millions of hospitality graduates per year will be needed as global tourism workers and a further 800,000 jobs per year will require specific vocational training.
