E-Paper
World Tourism Day 2022: Why is this year’s theme ‘rethinking tourism?’
In August, a UN report said that international tourism finally saw a strong rebound in the first five months of 2022, with almost 250 million international arrivals recorded - a positive sign.
The World Tourism day is observed every year to celebrate tourism’s growth and achievements in recent times. This year, the agenda - surrounding the international celebration - is centered around the theme ‘Rethink Tourism.’
In August, a UN report said that international tourism finally saw a strong rebound in the first five months of 2022, with almost 250 million international arrivals recorded - indicating a 46 per cent recovery in the tourism sector compared to the 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
The World Tourism Organisation - a United Nations body, overlooking international tourism - in its official note explained that along with working on the "2030 Agenda" to achieve the seventeen sustainable development goals, it's crucial to "rethink how tourism can reach small businesses". While the recovery rate is an important graph to track, "it's equally crucial to map that it is fair for everyone," it said.
Also Read | Reviving travel and tourism in the post pandemic era
The organisation emphasised the importance of inclusivity in this sector and said the focus should be on women and other marginalised groups that could benefit from the tourism industry, while ensuring the industry’s growth does not come at the expense of people or planet.
To build a resilient tourism industry, last week the government of India adopted ‘Dharamshala Declaration’ to affirm the country's position as “global leader in the tourism sector by 2047” in a sustainable manner. India has not been untouched by the impact of the pandemic as the tourism industry suffered a big blow when the foreign tourist arrivals decreased to 2.74 million in 2020 as compared to 10.93 million in 2019, as per data.
