On March 8, an extraordinary session of the Executive Council of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) was held in Madrid, initiated by the Secretary General of the Organization Z.Pololikashvili (Georgia).
It was decided to hold an extraordinary meeting of the UNWTO General Assembly to consider the suspension of our country’s membership in the Organization.
We regret to note that the session of the Executive Council was held with gross procedural violations, and the UNWTO Secretariat interpreted the rules of procedure of the governing bodies unacceptably freely, distorting them in order to manipulate the opinion of the member countries.
Issues of territorial integrity and sovereignty do not belong to the mandate of the Organization, whose fundamental goal is the development of tourism. In this context, we consider the actions aimed at blocking Russia’s participation in the UNWTO as an unacceptable, undisguised manifestation of the politicization of the Organization.
We would recommend Z.Pololikashvili will engage in concrete work to counteract the real challenges that fall under the mandate of the UNWTO. We are talking, among other things, about the violation of the rights of thousands of Russian tourists who are “stuck” in different countries of the world due to the unjustified discriminatory policies of Western countries that have interrupted air traffic. It is precisely such actions that deal a huge blow to the development of the tourism industry, which has already suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
