Tourism: the enhancement of respect.

• Author: Frangialli, Francesco
• Position: World Tourism Organization's development of a Code of Ethics

On 1 October 1999, the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), held in Santiago, Chile, approved the "Global Code of Ethics for Tourism". This article explains how the Code was created, the principles contained in it, and how it will be implemented. Since the adoption of the famous Manila Declaration in 1980 under the auspices of WTO, a great many instruments--charters, codes and declarations--have marked the trajectory of world tourism. The purpose of the new Code, as stated in the preamble, is to combine a series of objects and ideas into a complex whole and enhance them by drawing on "new considerations relative to the development of our societies and thus provide a frame of reference for stakeholders in world tourism at the dawn of the next century and millennium".

Some will doubtless regard, if not with derision, at least with scepticism, the ambition to establish both a frame of reference and a game rule common to all tourism countries and development partners. But the facts speak for themselves: the new Code has fulfilled a real ambition, and one cannot remain indifferent to the fact that it has been unanimously adopted by the 107 countries which took part in the General Assembly--out of the 130 that make up the Organization--irrespective of the differences in culture, development levels, political systems and religion that may separate them. Four considerations denote the ambition and scope of this fundamental text.

First, its preparation, which was characterized by a huge concerted effort. The decision to prepare a new instrument committing the international tourism community was taken at the WTO General Assembly meeting in Istanbul in 1997. A special committee was formed for this purpose, where countries as different as Portugal and Malaysia, Brazil and Egypt, and Iran and the Holy See, were represented. But beyond the initial contributions of this committee, the underlying version of the Code was in fact inspired by the first draft drawn up by the Organization's legal adviser, Professor Alain Pellet, and a small team comprised of the WTO Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General Dawid de Villiers, a former Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in South Africa, and the Chief of Quality of Tourism Development, Henryk Handszuh.

The process continued during the first half of 1999, involving broad consultations with the World Tourism Organization's six Regional Commissions and the Executive Council and external industry partners, labour organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In March, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, at its meeting in New York and having been duly informed of these endeavours, expressed a lively interest in the steps being taken to this end. Between May and July, a great many Member States further enhanced the draft with their direct contributions, which naturally denoted differing degrees of sensitivity between those in favour of what one might term a certain "right to...