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The governing body of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) has given
its strong support to current Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli in his bid to be re-elected for a
further four-year term.
Twenty of the 28 votes cast at the WTO Executive Council meeting in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort town of Nessebar on Monday,
13 June, were in favour of Mr. Frangialli. The final decision as to who fills the post from
1 January, 2006 until the end of 2009 will be taken at the WTO General Assembly, which opens 25 November in
Dakar, Senegal. In the past, the General Assembly has always followed the recommendation of the Executive Council.
Nominated by France, Mr Frangialli was competing against Dr. Tanya Abrahamse of South Africa and Dimitar Hadjinikolov of Bulgaria.
"I believe the Executive Council has understood that we should build up on what we have already achieved and, at the same time that we have to prepare ourselves for
the future", Mr. Frangialli said.
"World tourism is on the rise again and this is confirmed by the evolution of tourism receipts in 2004, which have reached US $620 billion, an increase of 13.5%.
But we need to continue the fight against the negative environmental, social and cultural effects of tourism highlighted in the Global Code of Ethics and use our new
capacity as specialized agency of the United Nations to exploit all synergies with other organizations of the UN System."
Among crucial tasks facing the Organization are WTO's ST-EP initiative, which extends tourism's contribution to poverty alleviation through sustainable development
and represents "a change in the scale of future actions in favour of developing countries". More emphasis also needs to be given to the Tourism Satellite Account
system, which underlines the real impact of tourism to national economies."
The Secretary-General said that WTO has never been more influential, with a membership soon to reach 150
states that will include in the near future the United Kingdom. Its financial situation is excellent, although further efforts are needed to diversify resources and make it less dependent on contributions from
states.
Mr. Frangialli joined WTO as Deputy Secretary-General in 1990 and succeeded Antonio Enríquez Savignac ad interim from September 1996 before being elected
Secretary-General in 1997. He was reelected in 2001.
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