UNWTO welcomed the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an increasingly valuable instrument in the campaign to enhance the tourism competitiveness of developing countries to reduce poverty. But calls for it to better reflect the structural inequities of the development divide and the imperatives of climate change.

UNWTO is part of the network set up by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to develop the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index and has provided state of the art input to this process. The WEF released the second edition of its Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index in March.

“A reliable index will underscore UNWTO’s longstanding ‘Liberalization with a Human Face Strategy’, calling for policies which increase tourism competitiveness of poor countries. In the broader policy context, the findings will be particularly valuable in the final stages of the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization and its Aid for Trade package, as well as in the Financing Support programs flowing from Climate Change adaptation”, said UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General Geoffrey Lipman.

The Development Gap

UNWTO considers that so far the criteria for competitiveness might place poor countries at an inherent disadvantage in key areas, ranging from safety or hygiene to general infrastructure and human resources – simply because they are developing.

Improvement will require a substantial transfer of funds, building of infrastructure and supply of technical know how to developing countries generally and to African nations specifically. This element of the report could benefit from a fundamental reappraisal in order to avoid that poor countries are automatically shown in a disadvantaged way, as is currently the case.

The Climate Change Paradigm

During 2007 UNWTO was actively involved in helping the sector assess the climate change/tourism relationship and develop a meaningful response framework, based on the Davos Declaration Process. The Process sets out directions for change and calls on tourism stakeholders to establish a long range low carbon emission roadmap with immediate concrete action plans supporting global response and coherent with the commitments to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Tourism has a special responsibility and opportunity - in the world’s poorest and emerging countries our sector is one of the principle services exports with a strong comparative advantage a proven value in the war on poverty and a very low carbon footprint Responsible growth and competitiveness patterns must find ways to capitalize on this.

Reviewing the Index

The establishment of any index is an evolving process and in this context, the Report should be reviewed to reflect both the climate change paradigm and the development divide. Lipman said “The Competitiveness Report has already achieved real enhancement – particularly in relation to sustainability. It is now vitally important to reflect the realities that despite their structural disadvantages, developing countries have a comparative advantage in sustainable ecotourism on the one hand, and are low producers of green house gas on the other.”