"Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one's prejudices," claimed Irish writer Oscar Wilde in the 19th century. This message of cultural education is also being promoted by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) to coincide with this year's World Tourism Day.

Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General of the UNWTO, wants to encourage people to travel, but in his official World Tourism Day message he emphasizes that tourism "shares the social responsibility of promoting the positive aspects of globalization."

"We have the responsibility to make people aware that, if mismanaged, tourism can impact the environment, the society, culture, and even the economy, in a negative way," Rifai told Deutsche Welle. "Cultural heritage is the natural capital of tourism. Tourism has the responsibility to enhance it, to enrich it."

Booming business

Tourism is a growing industry. It represents five percent of the world's GDP and six percent of exports and services. Over eight percent of the world's population works in tourism-related jobs. The UNWTO predicts that in 2020 around 1.6 billion people will travel abroad.

The organization hopes for an official adoption of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, with the goal of promoting the positive economic, social and cultural effects of travel and minimizing the negative effects. This concept of was already adopted by the US-based International Institute For Peace Through Tourism (IIPT) at the first global tourism conference in Vancouver in 1988.

An educational experience

According to IIPT president Louis D'Amore, the positive cultural effects of tourism are increasingly visible nowadays. The message is starting to take hold.

"People are looking for real-life experiences - trying to meet the people in these destinations that they're visiting, learning about their cultures and their history," D'Amore told Deutsche Welle.

His statement is reflected by current developments. The fastest-growing tourism sector is cultural and educational travel, as well as so-called volunteer tourism.

"One out of five international travelers is under the age of 25, said D'Amore. "These young people travel around the world and they are interested in interacting with other young people from other countries. This generation of youth is the main hope that we have for the future. We are beginning to develop a generation of people who are global citizens."

Cultural influence

Taleb Rifai believes that these "global citizens" can play the role of cultural representatives.

"Cultural changes that happen as a result of tourism are a fact," said Rifai. "When more people come to your country, when more people from your country travel abroad, there are cultural changes. But we would like to see these changes as contributing to a more tolerant world, a more understanding world."

The growth of the tourism industry despite natural disasters and political crises is partly due to its flexibility. This feature is a blessing as well as a curse. As soon as a destination becomes unsafe for tourists, they go somewhere else. This is the reason why hotels in Tunisia and Egypt stayed mostly empty this summer season. The European tourists who would have normally chosen these countries traveled to other warm places instead.

Turning bad into good

In fact, Rifai believes that cultural change can lead directly to increased tourism in some areas. Although tourists have been keeping away from several Arab countries following this year's political unrests, Rifai is optimistic about the future of these destinations. He believes that the new trend towards democracy and transparency that exists there will contribute positively to tourism.

Using Spain as an example, he points out that most of its tourism infrastructure developed during the years of the Francoist dictatorship between 1936 and 1975.

"Spain became one the strongest destinations for tourism in the world after democracy, because democracy brought in all the energy and unleashed all the imaginative and creative power of the small and mid-sized industries," said Rifai. "And we are expecting that these phenomena will occur in Tunisia and Egypt and all the other places once things settle down."

Author: Mirjam Gehrke / ew

Editor: Mark Hallam