Speech by Francesco Frangialli, Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, at the opening of ITB (Berlin, Germany, 3 March 2001)

It is an honour for the World Tourism Organization to be associated once again with the opening of the year's most prestigious tourism event - ITB Berlin.

It faithfully reflects the prosperity, dynamism and diversity of the world travel industry. And it is about this industry that I wish to speak, drawing on the excellent figures for 2000 that our Organization has just released.

It was an emblematic year punctuated by major gatherings that, whatever people may say, kept their promises: the summer Olympics of Sydney, the European football championship (won brilliantly by my country, France, by the way), Expo 2000 here in Germany and the millennium Jubilee celebrations in Italy and the Holy Land.

Spurred on by these events, world tourism, with some 700 million arrivals, an increase of 7.4 per cent, last year continued its impressive march forward at an even faster pace. It doubled its growth rate of 1999 to match the best of the early years of the decade, generating receipts of 476 billion dollars, a rise of 4.5 per cent.

The eastern Mediterranean, Central Europe, North America and the Caribbean performed especially well. The Asia-Pacific region increased the strong growth it had recovered in 1999 after overcoming the effects of the monetary and financial crisis of the two previous years. But it was with sorrow that we saw how the events of the last weeks of the year in the Middle East partly nullified the benefits that the millennium celebrations had brought.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

All these regions, and indeed most countries of the world, are represented at this renowned fair.

I should like to express my sincere sympathy to two of them this evening. To El Salvador, afflicted to the depths of its being twice in close succession at the beginning of this year; and to India which I left the very morning when it fell victim to one of the greatest natural disasters it had ever known. I wish to convey to both of them the solidarity of the countries that belong to the World Tourism Organization and to assure them that they can count on the Organization to help them put their tourism industries firmly back on track.

I also wish to take this opportunity to express our consternation - even repulsion is not too strong a term - at the recent news from Afghanistan. Respect for the culture and beliefs of others usually goes hand in hand with respect for human rights. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. In embarking on the destruction of its cultural and religious heritage, the Government of Afghanistan, already suspended from our Organization for persisting in a policy that is contrary to the Statutes, is ruining its chances of one day achieving the economic health that comes with tourism development. It is penalizing its people and offending the universal conscience at a time when the world is observing the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, declared by the United Nations. I hope that the international community and governments represented here will act accordingly.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

The outstanding results for 2000 have endorsed our assessment of the strength and resilience of the world tourism market, of which ITB is, uniquely, at once a driving force and a true mirror. Now more than ever we believe in the validity of the forecasting studies that led us to predict that between 1995 and 2020, the space of a generation, tourist flows would double in Europe and triple worldwide.

It is easy to imagine the potential consequences, both positive and negative, of this spectacular development. It is bound to generate jobs and activity, but its cultural, social and environmental effects cannot be ignored. It is a prospect that calls for deeper thought about the kind of economy and society we wish to build through tourism, for both ourselves and future generations.

It was with this in mind that, on 27 September last year, we devoted World Tourism Day, fittingly commemorated at Hanover during the Universal Exposition, to the theme "technology and nature: two challenges for tourism at the dawn of the twenty-first century". That exceptional event was honoured with the presence of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, you yourself Mr Minister of Economics and Technology, many ministers and policy-makers from other countries, among them President Erich Kaub, and Germany's tourism industry leaders.

On that occasion I said that, faced with the twofold challenge of nature and technology, which will be that of the age we are entering, Germany, more than other countries, has the ability and therefore, to a certain extent, the duty to show the way.

Not least as a major destination that received 19 million foreign visitors in 2000, 10 per cent up on the previous year.

Last year Germany benefited from the convergence of several favourable factors: the euro zone's competitive advantage over generating markets with strong currencies like the dollar and the pound, the good performance of central and eastern Europe in the wake of the Kosovo conflict, the resurgence of Russia's economy on emerging from its financial crisis, not forgetting the additional arrivals generated by the Hanover Expo.

Berlin, Mr Mayor, has been - and will continue to be - one of Germany's greatest tourism assets. A Berlin rebuilt, reunified, reformed and restored to its role as the nation's capital, radiating economic and cultural health as in its heyday. Berlin which, beyond its political function and its consolidation as a business and conference hub, has become one of continent's most attractive destinations for urban tourism, at a time when Europe is irreversibly committed to an enlargement process that will place the capital of Germany at its very centre.

But Germany is not only a successful destination. It is first and foremost the world's second-largest generating market, its nationals taking 75 million trips and spending 800 million nights abroad. Because of the strong market they represent, these tourists and their travel organizers wield the necessary influence to require destinations to offer well-preserved cultural sites and monuments, clean seas and beaches and a natural environment and biodiversity that are intact. They have fortunately begun to comply.

In this regard, the message of Germany's tourism industry is akin to that of WTO. Together, we wish to build a brand of tourism that is sustainable, balanced, responsible and concerned for its setting but, at the same time, open to the growing liberalization of trade and the technological innovations that foster human communication.

Thank you.