WTTC Best Practices Toolkit to Aid Governments in Tourism Policies

Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO

A toolkit of best practices aimed at tourism ministers, sector leaders, and policymakers worldwide was presented this week during the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit in Seville, Spain.

The WTTC Global Best Practices Recognition Initiative comes to provide insight to tourism sector decision-makers on issues, challenges and problems that have been successfully innovated on elsewhere in the world. The idea is for public and private sectors to learn from the successful experiences of other countries as they develop, review and implement travel- and tourism-related policies.

The ongoing initiative will be updated with the most recent success stories integrated into a new online data base. Initial focus areas include offering ‘quick win’ policies and ‘game changers’ in the areas of securing and facilitating travel, prioritising the sector, and planning for sustainable and inclusive growth.

Plans include extending these to policies related to infrastructure, workforce, technology, regulation, innovations, entrepreneurship, resilience and crisis planning in the future.

“When I was the minister of tourism for Mexico, I would have greatly appreciated such a toolkit, and I am confident that policymakers across the globe will find the Global Best Practices Recognition Initiative invaluable to their efforts to enhance travel and tourism competitiveness,” said Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO.

The travel and tourism industry represents 10.4 percent of global GDP, accounting for one in 10 jobs worldwide (319 million) and 6.5 percent of global exports in 2018.