UNWTO welcomes the agreement reached by the Sustainable Tourism Observatory of Guanajuato (Mexico) and Paraguay to facilitate knowledge and technology transfer. Guanajuato is one of the 16 Observations in the UNWTO Network.

“We praise the agreement signed by the State Secretariat of Tourism of Guanajuato (SECTUR) and the National Tourism Secretariat of Paraguay (SENATUR) as an important step to increase the development of sustainable tourism observatories” said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai.

The State Secretary of Tourism of Guanajuato, Fernando Oliver Rocha said “through this alliance, we aim at fostering public policies with regard to sustainable tourism practices”.

The Executive Secretary of Paraguay, Marcela Bacigalupo, recognized the relevance of the work of the UNWTO Observatories and underlined the importance of engaging private sector in sustainable tourism initiatives. “UNWTO has referred to Guanajuato as one of the best Observatories in Latin America, so we are very glad to have undersigned this agreement,” she mentioned.

The Tourism Observatory of Guanajuato, the first in Latin American, became a member of the UNWTO International Network of Tourism Observatories in 2014. The first meeting held between SECTUR and SENATUR happened at the UNWTO International Meeting of Spanish Tourism Observatories, held in 2016.

The UNWTO International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO) is a network of tourism observatories monitoring the economic, environmental and social impact of tourism at the destination level, committed to regular monitoring of tourism in order to better understand destination-wide resource use and foster the responsible management of tourism. There are 16 observatories currently in operation worldwide.