Hospitality Expos - World Tourism Organization UNWTO Hotel News

International tourist arrivals grew by 4.5% in the first eight months of 2011 to a total of 671 million (29 million more than in the same period of 2010).

UNWTO and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Thailand have officially concluded a project to help hotels along the Thai Andaman coast significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs through energy-saving technologies.

International tourism recovered strongly in 2010 according to the Advance Release of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. International tourist arrivals were up by almost 7% to 935 million, following the 4% decline in 2009 – the year hardest hit by the global economic crisis. The vast majority of destinations worldwide posted positive figures, sufficient to offset recent losses or bring them close to this target. However, recovery came at different speeds and was primarily driven by emerging economies.

The members of the UNWTO Knowledge Network (UNWTO.Know), a worldwide community of innovative knowledge institutions, universities and other public and private organizations dedicated to furthering tourism know-how, will come together for the first time at the Network’s kick-off meeting, held in the context of the international tourism trade fair, FITUR 2011 (Madrid, Spain, 19 January).

Measuring energy consumption, the carbon footprint and providing sustainable investment possibilities are the key components of an E-toolkit which could have a path-breaking impact on the tourism sector, helping hotels reduce their carbon footprint while increasing business profits. The Hotel Energy Solutions (HES) E-toolkit will be presented at the second annual HES Conference, ‘An Innovative Energy Toolkit for Hotels’ during the International Tourism trade fair FITUR 2011 (Madrid, Spain, 20 January 2011).

Platma is the result of UNWTO's efforts to utilize advanced technologies that facilitate and foster the exchange of information between the public and private sectors of world tourism.

In today’s competitive marketplace, tourism’s sustainable development and growth must be accompanied by quality tourism services. With the aim of assisting its Member countries to reinforce their competitive advantages, UNWTO is supporting a new hotel classification system in Morocco to ensure the country’s accommodation industry meets international demand for quality service.

Tourism is a key economic driver for the 22 countries of the Ibero-American Community (the 19 countries of Latin America and the three of the Iberian Peninsula). The newly released ‘Tourism in Ibero-America’ highlights that tourism was among the economic activities that best resisted the global economic crisis and therefore strongly contributes to the sustained and balanced growth and development of Ibero-American countries.

Results through August 2010 prove that international tourism continues to recover from the decline of 4.2% suffered last year under the impact of the economic crisis. In the first eight months of this year, the number of international tourist arrivals exceeded the record achieved during the same period of the pre-crisis year 2008.

Major demographic trends at the global level – rising populations, increased life expectancy, urbanization, migration, changing family structures – present fresh challenges for the tourism sector. Demographic change will impact upon the types of tourists that will travel, where they originate from, where they travel to, the types of accommodation they require and the activities they engage in while away.