UN Tourism at FITUR 2025: A Milestone Event for Sector-Wide Cooperation
UN Tourism has returned to the FITUR international trade fair to advance the sector’s shirt towards greater accessibility and growth propelled by investments and innovation.
 UN Tourism at FITUR 2025: A Milestone Event for Sector-Wide Cooperation
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On the eve of FITUR 2025, UN Tourism gathered high-level delegates to celebrate its 50th anniversary, reaffirming its long-standing commitment to making the sector a pillar of peace and understanding. Looking to the next 50 years, UN Tourism once again used the platform of the leading tourism trade fair to advance priorities for the present and the future, with a focus on supporting new ideas and technologies and boosting investments into the sector.
As UN Tourism celebrates 50 years, FITUR meets for the 45th time. Together, we have helped shape global tourism, building bridges between the public and private sectors, promoting dialogue and cooperation and advancing shared priorities around innovation, sustainability and resilience. UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili
Within the framework of FITUR 2025, the UN Tourism leadership held a series of high-level meetings with delegates, including Ministers of Tourism, business leaders and representatives of its Member States.
FITUR 2025: Tourism investments take centre stage
In Madrid, UN Tourism welcomed key stakeholders for a special Investment Breakfast, hosted in partnership with the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF). The event brought together experts to focus on the key opportunities and challenges for growing investments into the sector across the region.
On this occasion, UN Tourism presented the latest additions to its growing portfolio of “Tourism Doing Business” Investment Guidelines. The two new publications focus on the investment landscape of Panama and also Brazil, partner country of FITUR 2025.
Making tourism more accessible to all
Further advancing its commitment to making tourism and its benefits available to all, UN Tourism and AccessibleEU hosted a special side event at FITUR (23 January).
Organized in collaboration with the ONCE Foundation, the European Network for Accessible Tourism and ILUNION Acesibilidad, the event “Accessible Tourism: Harnessing the Benefits of Inclusive Destinations for Companies and People” celebrated the progress made in this field, making clear the advantages to destinations of being more inclusive. The event also assessed the challenges standing in the way of opening up destinations to visitors of all abilities, with a particular emphasis on infrastructure and the use of innovation to boost accessibility.
UN Tourism Affiliate Members: New allies welcomed
UN Tourism welcomed its growing network of Affiliate Members to FITUR 2025, further strengthening ties right across the diverse sector. A special “Affiliate Members Corner” was held, focusing on “Targeting Traveler Segments”. The event assessed key growth areas and other areas of potential for destinations looking to diversify their tourism offerings.
At FITUR, UN Tourism signed new Memorandums of Understanding with Affiliate Member CIFFT (Audiovisual Tourism Advertising), designed to advance creativity.
Related links
- UN Tourism and CAF Strengthen Collaboration to Promote Regional Branding and Sustainable Tourism
- UN Tourism and CAF Advance Tourism Investments in Americas and Launch Guidelines for Brazil and Panama
- Andorra becomes 25th country to adhere to the International Code for the Protection of Tourists
- FITUR 2025
About UN Tourism
The World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.
As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UN Tourism promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.
Our Priorities
Mainstreaming tourism in the global agenda: Advocating the value of tourism as a driver of socio-economic growth and development, its inclusion as a priority in national and international policies and the need to create a level playing field for the sector to develop and prosper.
Promoting sustainable tourism development: Supporting sustainable tourism policies and practices: policies which make optimal use of environmental resources, respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities and provide socio-economic benefits for all.
Fostering knowledge, education and capacity building: Supporting countries to assess and address their needs in education and training, as well as providing networks for knowledge creation and exchange.
Improving tourism competitiveness: Improving UN Tourism Members' competitiveness through knowledge creation and exchange, human resources development and the promotion of excellence in areas such as policy planning, statistics and market trends, sustainable tourism development, marketing and promotion, product development and risk and crisis management.
Advancing tourism's contribution to poverty reduction and development: Maximizing the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction and achieving the SDGs by making tourism work as a tool for development and promoting the inclusion of tourism in the development agenda.
Building partnerships: Engaging with the private sector, regional and local tourism organizations, academia and research institutions, civil society and the UN system to build a more sustainable, responsible and competitive tourism sector.
Our Structure
Members: An intergovernmental organization, UN Tourism has 160 Member States, 6 Associate Members, 2 Observers and over 500 Affiliate Members.
Organs: The General Assembly is the supreme organ of the Organization. The Executive Council take all measures, in consultation with the Secretary-General, for the implementation of the decisions and recommendations of the General Assembly and reports to the Assembly.
Secretariat: UN Tourism headquarters are based in Madrid, Spain. The Secretariat is led by the Secretary-General and organized into departments covering issues such as sustainability, education, tourism trends and marketing, sustainable development, statistics and the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), destination management, ethics and risk and crisis management. The Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Department carries out development projects in over 100 countries worldwide, while the Regional Departments for Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East serve as the link between UN Tourism and its 160 Member States. The Affiliate Members Department represents UN Tourism's 500 plus Affiliate members.
UN Tourism Communications Department
Phone: +34 91 567 8100
Fax: + 34 91 567 8218
Email: comm@UNWTO.org
UN Tourism
www.unwto.org/
Capitán Haya, 42
Madrid, 28020
Spain
Phone: +34 91 571 07 57
Fax: +34 91 567 81 00 /20
Email: comm@unwto.org
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UN Tourism and CAF Advance Tourism Investments in Americas and Launch Guidelines for Brazil and Panama
