{"id":7543,"date":"2025-11-27T02:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/global-travel-news\/un-tourism-welcomes-g20-leaders-recognition-and-strong-support-for-tourism\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T09:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T09:36:41","slug":"un-tourism-welcomes-g20-leaders-recognition-and-strong-support-for-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/global-travel-news\/un-tourism-welcomes-g20-leaders-recognition-and-strong-support-for-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Tourism Welcomes G20 Leaders Recognition and Strong Support for Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"UN<\/div>\n

\"UN<\/a>Madrid, Spain, November 27, 2025 \/ TRAVELINDEX \/ G20 Leaders<\/strong> have recognized the contribution of tourism to shared prosperity and sustainability at the first Summit held in Africa under the Presidency of South Africa.<\/p>\n

The G20 South Africa Summit: Leaders\u2019 Declaration<\/strong> includes an important set of commitments to advance tourism as a key driver of inclusive and sustainable development with a focus on:
\n\u2013 Promoting innovation and Investment
\n\u2013 Enhancing air connectivity, market access and new routes
\n\u2013 Supporting the digitalization of tourism start-ups and MSMEs
\n\u2013 Unlocking financing for sustainable tourism
\n\u2013 Creating opportunities for youth, women, people in vulnerable situations, local communities and Indigenous Peoples
\n\u2013 Developing inclusive and sustainable tourism practices
\n\u2013 Mobilizing public-private capital for sustainability alignment investment, and
\n\u2013 Integrating tourism in national development strategies<\/p>\n

UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili says: \u201cThe G20 economies represent around 70% of international tourism, and so this clear recognition of our sector\u2019s importance to shared prosperity and sustainability is hugely welcome. We are particularly encouraged to see G20 Leaders intent to work on more and better connectivity between destinations, accelerating innovation and the shift to digital, ensuring the sector leaves no one behind and placing tourism in national development strategies. Great strides were made by South Africa\u2019s G20 Presidency. I would like to congratulate HE President Cyril Ramaphosa for an outstanding Presidency, the first in Africa, and Minister Patricia DeLille for her leadership in the tourism track.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Declaration, G20 Leaders highlight their \u201cstrong support for tourism innovation and investment, enhancing air connectivity, expanding market access, opening more routes, promoting sustainability, aviation safety and security while ensuring fair competition and policy coordination, facilitating people-to-people contacts and developing inclusive, sustainable tourism practices, as well as advancing digital innovation to enhance travel and tourism start-ups and MSMEs.\u201c<\/p>\n

G20 Leaders further commit to work to \u201cpromote and expand opportunities for youth, women, people in vulnerable situations, local communities and Indigenous Peoples, as appropriate, with a practical and evidence-based approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

They \u201cemphasize the importance of integrating tourism into national development strategies and the need to unlock financing for sustainable tourism. We call for the mobilization of public-private capital through transparent, predictable, and sustainability-aligned investment environments.<\/p>\n

UN Tourism as South Africa G20 Presidency Knowledge Partner<\/strong><\/p>\n

UN Tourism is honored to have worked with the South African G20 Presidency as a Knowledge Partner and contributed to the discussions at the Tourism Working Group and the Tourism Ministers Meeting held last September.<\/p>\n

Last September, Tourism Ministers gathered in Mpumalanga committed to advancing policies that foster a sustainable, inclusive and resilient tourism sector, namely in terms of:
\n\u2013 Digital innovation to enhance travel and tourism start-ups and MSME
\n\u2013 Tourism financing and investment to enhance equality and promote sustainable development
\n\u2013 Air Connectivity for Seamless Travel
\n\u2013 Enhancing resilience for inclusive, sustainable tourism development<\/p>\n

The G20 represents around 70% of all international tourist arrivals and exports from tourism.<\/p>\n

Tourism accounts for 3.1% of the total GDP of the G20, 5% of all exports, and 21% of all service exports.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madrid, Spain, November 27, 2025 \/ TRAVELINDEX \/ G20 Leaders have recognized the contribution of tourism to shared prosperity and sustainability at the first Summit held in Africa under the Presidency of South Africa. The G20 South Africa Summit: Leaders\u2019 Declaration includes an important set of commitments to advance tourism as a key driver of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2315,37,14,2316,1966],"class_list":["post-7543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-travel-news","tag-global-travelnews","tag-news","tag-travelindex","tag-travelindex-media-group","tag-untourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}