Basic information

It was at its third session (Torremolinos, Spain, September 1979), that the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) decided to institute, commencing the World Tourism Day.

WORLD TOURISM DAY is to be commemorated on 27 September each year by appropriate events. This date was chosen to coincide with an important moment for the WTO: the anniversary of the adoption of the WTO Statutes on 27 September 1970. All events are based on themes selected by the General Assembly, on recommendation of WTO's Executive Council.

The main purpose of World Tourism Day is to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic values.

The timing of World Tourism Day is indeed particularly appropriate in that it comes at the end of the high season in the northern hemisphere and the beginning of the season in the southern hemisphere, when tourism is of topical interest to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide from all walks of life and to tourists and the operational sector in particular.

The Organization invites all interested parties to take part on 27 September each year in the special celebrations taking place in their respective country or holiday destination.

The WTO General Assembly decided that every year a different country should be appointed host to the World Tourism Day, representing itself as the WTO's partner in the commencing of 27 September.

During the Fifteenth Session of the WTO General Assembly (Beijing, China, October 2003) the Assembly decided the following as the geographic order to be followed beginning in 2006 for the World Tourism Day celebrations: 2006 in Europe; 2007 in South Asia; 2008 in the Americas, and 2009 in Africa.

On the same session, the Assembly decided that the Organization, as a new UN specialized agency, should in future take into account as far as possible, when choosing the World Tourism Day themes, those adopted for the international years and days declared under the aegis of the UN.
Themes chosen in the past always tried to integrate tourism with cultural heritage, world peace, mutual understanding, ecology, social development and other.

The host of last year's World Tourism Day was Malaysia and the topic was:’ Sport and tourism: two living forces for mutual understanding, culture and the development of societies'.

On that occasion many countries organized sporting events, quizzes, exhibitions, presentations in gastronomy. Croatia organized a soccer tournament between the ministries responsible for tourism and sports. The Minister of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development Božidar Kalmeta, participated himself in the tournament.

The center of this year's celebration is Qatar with the theme:’ Travel and transport: from the imaginary of Jules Verne to the reality of the 21st century’. The chosen theme is also a way to commemorate 100 years since the death of Jules Verne, a great writer and visionary of modern traveling.