Is this a good or a sad day for World Tourism? The large camp attending the Executive Council in Madrid from Georgia obviously is having a great day.

Zurab Pololikashvili, the candidate for the UNWTO Secretary General from Georgia was elected this afternoon as the next secretary-general. He received 18 votes in the second round  in Madrid today. In the first round, Georgia had 8 votes, Walter Mzembi from Zimbabwe 11 votes.

One can only congratulate the prime minister of Georgia for his support. The Georgian ambassador in Madrid almost appeared to be on the sideline during the campaign.

This election result may not have been the best candidate, but about international politics and deals in return for favors.

After his victory, Zurab Pololikashvili was seen drinking champagne with his team. He did not attend the press conference with Taleb Rifai after the election. During his campaign, there was no media outreach, and the candidate was absent from most international events. For most of us in the press, Mr. Pololikashvili remains a no-one.

The secretary general-elect related a message to all candidates after his inauguration and offered to work with them in the future.

Plan B  for defeated candidates would be to contest the election at the upcoming General Assembly in China?
In such a case 2/3 of all member countries have to confirm the recommendation of the executive council.

Taleb Rifai said at the press conference today he knew Zurab for many years. He called him a good man capable of doing the job. He cited his experience as the former minister of tourism for Georgia. He ended in saying democracy had spoken.

The secretary general also said. There were two criterions for the vote:
1) The character, vision, and knowledge of a candidate.
2) The country this candidate represents and its standing in the world.

It appears this type of “democracy” may be controlled actually by the foreign ministries or heads of state and not the tourism ministers or tourism representatives in many voting countries.

Bilateral deals are cut by foreign ministers or heads of state and are often unrelated to travel and tourism.
A voting executive council member actually not only has a responsibility to its own nation, but to 4 other countries. There is 1 executive member for every 5 UNWTO member countries

Perhaps such an important decision should only be made by the full general assembly of the UNWTO.
Our largest industry, travel & tourism is too important to be dealt with on a sideline.

Madrid, Spain, hosted the 105th meeting of the Executive Council of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) between 11 and 12 May. The Meeting focused on current trends and challenges facing the tourism sector and on the three priorities of the Organization – safe, secure and seamless travel; the impact of technology in the tourism sector and sustainability.

The Executive Council, attended by some 250 representatives from 59 countries, focused on these priorities as well as on the UNWTO programme of work for 2018-2019 and the agenda of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development 2017.

The 105th session of the UNWTO Executive Council also recommended Zurab Pololikashvili, from Georgia, as the nominee for the post of Secretary-General for the four-year-period starting January 2018. This recommendation will be submitted to the 22nd UNWTO General Assembly for ratification (11-16 September 2017, Chengu, China).

“We predict that 1.8 billion international tourists will travel across borders by 2030. We must ensure that such growth goes hand-in-hand with sustainability. We must embrace the opportunities created by innovation and new technologies. We must continue to make travel safer, but also more seamless and accessible for all. And we must ensure that our sector serves the planet as well as its people” said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, opening the meeting.

“UNWTO is a privileged forum where all countries discuss the main challenges facing our sector, share experiences and build common solutions. Tourism is about building bridges” said the Secretary of State of Tourism of Spain, Matilde Asían.

The Chair of the Council, the Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, Abulfas Garayev, recalled the importance of the declaration by the United Nations General Assembly of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development “This is a unique opportunity to raise awareness of the contribution of sustainable tourism to development among public and private sector decision makers and the public, while mobilizing all stakeholders to work together in making tourism a catalyst for positive change”, he said.

The 106th and 107th sessions of the UNWTO Executive Council will take place in September 2017 in Chengdu, China in the framework of the 22nd UNWTO General Assembly.

The Executive Council is UNWTO’s governing board, responsible for ensuring that the ‎Organization carries out its programme of work. It meets at least twice a year and is ‎composed of 33 members elected by the General Assembly in a ratio of one for every ‎five Full Members. As host country of UNWTO’s Headquarters, Spain has a permanent ‎seat on the Executive Council. Representatives of the Associate Members and Affiliate ‎Members participate in Executive Council meetings as observers.

Taleb Rifai, the current secretary – general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) told eTN today: ” I am proud of all candidates today and found great value in all presentations I heard.”

Today the Executive Council of the UNWTO is meeting in Madrid to select a new leader for world tourism.

All five candidates presented their ideas this morning and executive council members are now voting to present their selection to the next full assembly in China later this year. A result is expected within an hour or two from publishing this article.

Media was not allowed to attend the presentation, but eTN managed to get feedback from some delegates attending the event.

In a nutshell, the presentation by the Zimbabwe minister Waler Mzembi (published by eTN earlier) was very detailed and showed a high level of knowledge and vision.

The same was true for the presentation by Carlos Vogeler, who is the running mate with candidate Dho Young-shim from Korea.

Dho Young-shim complimented her part of the presentation in listing achievements pointing out sustainable tourism projects and her love for Africa, assisting developing countries with the STEP program this candidate was leading for the last ten years.

The presentation by Zurab Pololikashvili, the candidate from Georgia was disappointing. Marcio Favila from Brazil address was well thought through. eTN did not get a feedback on the presentation from Colombia.

Strangely Alain St. Ange was allowed to address the executive council before the election. His emotional speech most likely influenced the election.

At the press conference after the election, Taleb Rifai explained. There are two factors a candidate is judged:
1) By his or her ability to lead, character and vision
2) By the country and the standing of the country he or she represents.

After the presentations candidates were seen in suspense talking about the possible outcome.

The Hon. Walter Mzembi just delivered his official pitch to become the next UNWTO Secretary-General to delegates attending the Executive Council meeting in Madrid at the Melia Castilla Hotel.

The transcript of his address he gave shortly after 10.30 am  this morning.

Your Royal Highness
Excellencies, Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen

The world finds itself in a different place today than where it was twelve months ago!

The global environment which characterized Taleb’s tenure of office has changed, presenting new, multi-faceted challenges for our sector and, inevitably, for his successor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present my candidature in an environment replete with challenges inter alia:

• a new and intensifying trend towards isolationism and intolerance by state administrations;
• the apparent shift towards unilateralism and populism;
• the issue of migration and its unintended consequences on the receiving countries;
• the threat of cyber-terrorism and the unintended consequences of the ICT revolution, and
• the threat of terror directed at the tourism industry now more pronounced than ever before. Equally so, the travel-related impact of natural disasters – many of them the direct consequence of climate change: especially in small-island developing states.

It is clear that the next Secretary General will have to grapple with the impact of political decisions emanating from nation states against each other – where diplomacy has given way to unilateralism, and where tourism-economies find themselves negatively impacted.

Accordingly, the incoming Secretary General, will have to be suitably equipped – in terms of qualification, professional experience, general aptitude and craft-competence – to successfully confront these challenges and to effectively respond to the expectations of members states in this changing world.

I believe my candidature amply responds to the requirements of the task ahead.

I present myself as a change agent – ready and equipped to renew and reposition our Organisation going forward.

The essence of my vision for the future development of global tourism as enunciated in my Statement of Policy and Management Intent, lists a four-pronged Agenda covering the following areas;

• Administrative and Governance Reform of the Organisation
• Resource Mobilisation and Business Development
• Responsible Tourism and Sustainability
• Organisational Repositioning and Brand Development

My candidature is about

• reform and renewal of the Organisation;
• providing leadership which will take the UNWTO beyond marketing excellence into the realm of high-level diplomacy and statecraft: and to new levels of global visibility and relevance;

It is about

• building an Organisation with more universal membership;
• to enhance its effectiveness and relevance within the broader UN family so that tourism, with its cross-cutting presence within all 17 SDG’s, can meet its obligations under the SDG framework;

It is about

• building a more fully inclusive Organisation;
• one which accommodates and reflects all views and which seeks, through inclusive consultation, to find comprehensive solutions to the challenges which confront the industry today;

It is about

• ensuring greater fairness and equity in the development and growth of global tourism, especially in the emerging world where tourism receipts continue to lag significantly behind other parts of the world;

It is about promoting Sustainable Tourism, Green Growth, Community Empowerment which expresses itself in all the SDGs, in particular SDG 8, 12, and 14;

My candidature will re-enforce a global regime on openness and safe secure and seamless travel, signposting sectoral contribution to global GDP from 10% to 15% during my tenure.

It is about

• maintaining a lean and efficient Secretariat which is more reflective of the UNWTO’s broad membership and more gender sensitive. If elected, I will have adequate time before taking office to study the existing structure and to determine what reforms, if any, maybe be required to refocus and re-direct the existing skills and expertise, whilst also allowing infusion of new blood;
• I shall inaugurate a Commission on Small Island Developing States, SIDS, some of them exclusively tourism-economies to look after issues of relevance to them, including implementation of relevant SDG’s, particularly SDG 14, Life Under Water; and the Paris Climate targets by 2050;
• I am in favour of Regional Commissions becoming more visible, present and operational in their respective theatres of activity; and I intend to foster tourism policy consummation, institutionalization and positive working relationships between regional commission offices at the headquarters and Regional Economic Communities (RECs). We need to develop shared programmes of work and this would not necessarily necessitate setting up offices, but devolving work content to points of application and implementation.
• I commit myself to establishing a monitoring and evaluation mechanism to facilitate the timeous implementation of our resolutions and decisions.

It is about

• working tirelessly to secure Tourism’s place as an integral component within the broader trade and investment value chain : after all, each trade and/or investment begins with a visit;

It is about

• initiating debate on the creation of a Global Tourism Fund – an innovative and sustainable source of funding for global tourism development – leveraging on tourism’s chief indicators – i.e. arrivals, expenditure etc; creating space within ODA for tourism-related funding; leveraging Public-Private-Partnerships to fund and implement infrastructural projects that connect destinations and product-development;

My candidature is about

• building the Organisation’s capacity to respond more effectively and practically to issues such as Tourism and Security, Travel Bans, the Use/Abuse of Travel Advisories; the impact of Currency Fluctuations; Pandemics; Climate Change, Natural Disasters; Child Sexual Abuse; and the complex, sensitive issue of Migrants;

With regard to this latter issue, my Vision speaks to the need for some form of “Marshall Plan” approach – to stem the flow of migrants by way of targeted investment in tourism, creating employment opportunities at home so that, in future, we have tourists…..not migrants on our door steps.

My candidature is about returning shareholder interest and value to the Organisation.

Observe the unprecedented level of political participation and interest in this Executive Council meeting : obviously attracted by the overtly political content of our Agenda – specifically the future leadership of the Organisation.

My candidature is premised on ensuring that this level of political and shareholder interest and attendant participation is sustained throughout the year, every year; to look at critical issues such as membership-recruitment, transformation of the Global Code of Ethics into an International Convention, and Tourism Security which are clearly political and not secretariat functions .

Excellencies, I am convinced that this vision’s realization lies, essentially, in transformative leadership – exactly the calibre of leadership which I offer.

Beginning April last year when I entered this race, I have traversed the world, attending all Statutory and Regional Commission meetings and engaging face-to-face with Tourism and Foreign Ministry authorities in all 33 Executive Council member states. I have attended many WTTC Summits, contributing and learning. I also sought input from the Associate Member Flanders.

I did so to gather a deeper appreciation of tourism and the challenges it faces in each geographic region of the world. I listened to and learnt first-hand the concerns and hopes for the future of global tourism under the umbrella of the UNWTO.

In several instances, colleagues shared with me their disquiet concerning (i) the static membership of our organization (ii) the possibility of further withdrawals from it; (iii) the worryingly low level of political participation at key meetings – and the gradual relegation of responsibility, by Ministers, to officials.

Member States aspirations far exceed the value that the organization is currently rendering. Granted, they derive benefit in terms of technical support, but, they expect and indeed deserve more – especially in terms of developmental support aligned to SDG Goals.

If we fail to correctly interpret these signs, or to act upon the messages they convey, and if we believe that a status-quo approach towards the future is good enough, then I believe, truly, that we are undermining our own Organisation and preventing it from attaining its full potential – in terms of global relevance and impact – of which it is surely capable.

The Vision and the substance of my Statement of Policy and Management Intent derive, therefore, from a lengthy, personal engagement with the entire Executive Council and reflects your collective input.

My candidature is unique in another very important aspect. I speak of the fact that I carry the endorsement of the entire African continent.

My CV speaks for itself in terms of academic and professional qualifications and deep-rooted experience in the tourism sector including my tourism-related legacy at the AU.

You all know the passion, energy, mental agility, and determination I bring to the table.

I am more than ready to serve global tourism and will do so to the very best of my ability.

Allow me to thank you for the opportunity to share my vision for the future of the UNWTO with you.

It would be remiss of me not to pay special tribute and commendation to Dr. Taleb Rifai for his outstanding service to our organization. Taleb I salute you !

I Thank You!