World Travel Market

UN Tourism has welcomed the first students enrolled on its pioneering degree course in International Sustainable Tourism.
Developed in collaboration with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), the three-year Bachelor of Science in International Sustainable Tourism is designed to train graduates capable of leading the sector toward a more sustainable future.
For the first academic year, 30 students were welcomed to Madrid, representing six different countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, and Switzerland). The Degree course is designed to equip students equipped with the skills to innovate, to drive change, and to make decisions that promote both economic growth and environmental stewardship.
UN Tourism Executive Director, Natalia Bayona says: "The tourism sector needs skilled people with diverse knowledge and innovative vision, and the Bachelor in International Sustainable Tourism was created to accompany tourism leaders on their journey into the future. With approximately 880,000 jobs in the tourism sector requiring specialised training annually by 2030, this degree programme is not just an educational initiative, but a transformative force. It is essential to cultivate the talent needed to drive the sector forward, ensuring sustainable growth and innovation."
Higher education is vital to building a sustainable tourism sector, a priority outlined in UN Tourism's educational roadmap. As one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing sectors, tourism holds a unique position as the largest employer of global youth, with over 50% of its workforce under the age of 25. However, despite this potential, young people face significant challenges. While youth make up 16% of the global population, more than one in five began this decade without being engaged in education, employment, or training. At the same time, the global tourism sector faces a shortage of skilled personnel, particularly in customer service and managerial roles.
This first undergraduate program from UN Tourism program represents a critical step towards bridging this gap. International diversity is achieved by targeting students from all over the world and with teaching taking place in Madrid Lucerne and online. Spain and Switzerland are two countries ranked among the top ten in the World Economic Forum's tourism competitiveness index—Spain being second and Switzerland tenth globally.
The vision of HSLU and UN Tourism is to create a universally accessible programme that empowers the future-oriented transformation of the entire tourism sector.
The 2022-2023 UNWTO Students’ League concluded with a celebration of young tourism talent.
The Grand Final of the flagship event for supporting students in tourism bought together high School and undergraduate students from Switzerland and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
The 2022-2023 Students' League challenged students to create support rural development through tourism by creating Instagram accounts to promote a rural destination in their countries.
For this Grand Final, the jury panel was made up of national and international experts from UNWTO, Academia and private sector stakeholders. In making their decision, the expert jury judged elements such as innovation, and feasibility of the idea as well as their potential to contribute to the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The winning team in the High School category was Team Rose Brandis from Mješovita srednja škola Travnik in Bosnia & Herzegovina. In the Undergraduate category, the jury named Team VS-TIM, Visoka škola za turizam i menadžment Konjic from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Team SHL from Schweizerische Hotelfachschule Luzern in Switzerland as joint winners.
After successfully passing through the initial phase on the National Final4 competitions in their countries during 2022 and 2023, three teams made it through to the Grand Final, Team Rose Brandis, representing Bosnia and Herzegovina - Team Rose Brandis from Mixed Secondary School Travnik and Team VS-TIM from Konjic College of Tourism and Management, and representing Switzerland – Team SHL from the Swiss Hotel Management School Lucerne.
For this first Grand Final, UNWTO counted on the partnership of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Affiliate Member and part of the Affiliate Members Board. The Universidad Complutense de Madrid has been a true knowledge leader for almost 800 years and has a long and proud history of producing the best minds and developing the best young talent. The Ayuntamiento de Madrid also contributed by showing the teams the beauty and hidden gems of Madrid.
The UNWTO Students League provides students with a platform that empowers and motivates them, by giving them real-time knowledge on our sector and experience by working on creating innovative and sustainable solutions for the challenges that the sector is facing. This initiative not only brings Tourism closer to younger generations but, by bringing together these young people with government officials, representatives of tourism industry, experts and other major stakeholders, it also bridges the gap between the realities of the sector and students' education and training, enabling young people to enter the labour market in the future as highly qualified and skilled professionals.
The number of destinations offering Digital Nomad Visas has risen significantly over recent years, with almost half now offering visas for at least one year.
According to a new analysis by the World Tourism Organization covering 54 destinations, the rise in Digital Nomad Visas (DNVs) has gone hand-in-hand with an increase in digital nomads, with destinations in all regions working to meet the market trend.
The UNWTO Brief examines the DNV programmes in seven areas: Application process, Duration of visa, Taxation, Insurance, Accommodation, Minimum income requirements and criminal records check. The brief looks at the background and current state of digital nomadism trends and provides an analysis of existing DNVs worldwide in five regions. Key findings include:
A DNV allows individuals to live and work in a foreign country while maintaining employment or conducting freelance work for employers or clients in their home or another country. With this visa, digital nomads can continue their professional pursuits while embracing the opportunity to immerse themselves in the host destination's unique lifestyle in line with much of the trends of the future of work. Furthermore, destinations use DNVto attract professionals from creative and technology areas to stimulate these areas nationally.
At the same time, the UNWTO Brief highlights the key considerations for destinations when offering or expanding their DNV programmes:
UNWTO celebrated the biggest Ministers Summit on record as it brought tourism leaders together on the opening day of the World Travel Market in London to focus on education and skills development.
Welcoming a record 40 Ministers of Tourism, representing every global region and destinations of all sizes, UNWTO Executive Director Natalia Bayona underscored the vital importance of investing in education.
The Summit, hosted at WTM for the 17th time, also featured inputs from key private sector players and from co-organizer the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
According to UNWTO with 1.2 billion people worldwide aged between 15 to 24, tourism can establish itself as a top employer of youth and driver of youth empowerment. However., according to the Office for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) around 10% of that demographic are unemployed and 14% hold only basic qualifications.
Outlining how UNWTO is leading the way in promoting tourism education, Executive Director Bayona emphasised the need to support education and skills development at every stage.
The United Kingdom's Minister for Tourism, Sir John Whittingdale, stressed the importance of platforms like the Ministers Summit to provide a dialogue on how different countries are tackling common challenges, including advancing tourism education. With more than double the number of Ministerial-level participants than 2022 highlighting the strong interest in the topic, participants shared their insights on the place of education in the future of tourism.
Alongside the Ministerial voices, the private sector was represented by leaders from Riyadh Air and JTB (Japan Tourism Bureau) Corp. They echoed the Ministers' focus on the importance of public-private partnerships, stressing that governments need to work with businesses to ensure training meets the needs of employers.
On the back of the expert inputs from tourism leaders from every global region, Ministers were able to take away key lessons from the London Summit. Chief among them was the shared nature of the challenges facing destinations everywhere, with a common need for more and better-skilled workers.
Concluding, UNWTO Executive Director Natalia Bayona noted the urgent need to make tourism an aspirational sector for young people everywhere, with public-private partnerships essentially for bringing the current skills gap in the sector.
The UNWTO General Assembly looked to the future with a focus on tourism education and training. The Global Education Forum brought together Ministers, employers, educators and learners to address the biggest challenges and opportunities for advancing training across every part of the sector.
According to data analysed by UNWTO, the majority of the global tourism workforce are young people, many of them without further training or qualifications. At the same time, existing tourism education centres and programmes prioritise hospitality, with UNWTO aiming to fill the gaps and deliver courses and other trainings to allow students to gain knowledge of every part of the diverse sector. Opening the Forum, UNWTO Executive Director Natalia Bayona made clear the opportunities and challenges: Tourism is the top employer of youth: over 50% of its workers aged 25 years old or less1 , while around 882,000 tourism jobs2 per year will require vocational training by 2030.
Ministers of Tourism from Andorra, Bahrain, Guatemala, the Philippines and Zambia brought their expert insights to a high-level Debate on Policies to Foster Innovation & Education for Current and Future Generations. Challenges highlighted included the high turnover of tourism staff in comparison to other economic sectors and the lack of tourism as a subject in schools in most education systems. The discussion explored opportunities for shaping new policies, effective instruments, and global partnerships to support inclusive and sustainable tourism development while addressing the skill gap and creating value-added jobs.
Within the Education Forum, UNWTO presented the Education Toolkit, a guide of recommendations for helping all actors involved on education in the introduction of tourism as a subject of the secondary school curricula with the ultimate goal of attracting and cultivating the right talent for the tourism sector.
The UNWTO Education Toolkit offers an overview of the current status of high schools and vocational education training worldwide, it also gives recommendations derived from the contributions of UNWTO member states, non-member states and academic partners and it also presents successful case studies of integrating tourism education and training in public and private schools. In addition, it includes a comprehensive overview of the benefits, with specialized curricula provided by UNWTO's academic partners: the Cambridge Assessment International Education, American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI), and the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO).
Also at the Forum, participants were given an overview of the recently inaugurated Tourism Academy in Samarkand in collaboration with UNWTO, a key outcome of the country's strong partnership with UNWTO.
During Bayona's keynote speech, she also presented the flexible three-year BSc in International Sustainable Tourism that UNWTO and the Swiss public university of Lucerne for Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) have developed to empower the future-oriented transformation of the entire tourism sector. This unique initiative will be the first time that UNWTO has been actively involved in an undergraduate programme, with modules that include a variety of UN-related topics, such as UN Diplomacy & Tourism and Global UNWTO Missions & Initiatives, and deliberately embeds the UN's values and global goals throughout the courses. The first cohort of the programme will commence in fall 2024 with a first year in Madrid, followed by a remote year and a third last year in Switzerland.
In a fitting culmination to the Global Education Forum, Dr. Bao Jigang was honoured with the prestigious Ulysses Prize, a testament to his remarkable contributions to the field of tourism. Awarded as the 16th laureate of this esteemed accolade bestowed by UNWTO for outstanding achievements in the creation and dissemination of knowledge within the realm of tourism, Dr. Bao's illustrious career stands as a shining example of his invaluable impact. Throughout his distinguished academic journey, he has played a pivotal role in catalysing the growth of domestic tourism, in his homely of the People´s Republic of China, elevating its scale and significance as a premier global tourism destination.
1. ILO (2013 United Nations (s.f.), OECD (2023)
2.ILO (2022)
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further enhanced its status as the global leader in advancing education and skills development for the tourism sector. As one of the top priorities of the Organization’s leadership, and fully endorsed by all Member States, education serves as the foundation for building more resilience and accelerating the shift to greater sustainability.
Against the backdrop of the 25th General Assembly (Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 16-20 October 2023), Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili visited the new Tourism Academy Samarkand in Collaboration with UNWTO. The Academy will train students new to the sector as well as those already working in tourism, giving them the skills they need to grow their careers. The Secretary-General praised the commitment of President President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Minister Aziz Abdukhakimov to investing in education and professional training and for recognizing the role both can play outside of the tourism sector itself.
The Samarkand Academy is just the latest in a growing network of education initiatives spearheaded by UNWTO. Just one month before the General Assembly, against the backdrop of this year’s World Tourism Day (27 September), the Secretary-General visited the newly-opened Riyadh School for Hospitality and Tourism in Collaboration with UNWTO. The school has already welcomed its first students and aims to welcome many thousands more, both from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself as well as from across the wider region and the world.
Alongside its Academies, UNWTO is transforming tourism education at every level. The Education Toolkit, launched out of the UNWTO Regional Office for the Middle East, is designed to support Member States everywhere introduce tourism as a high school subject. This stands alongside the growing UNWTO Tourism Online Academy, the UNWTO Students League and now the Bachelor’s Degree in Sustainable Tourism Management offered by UNWTO in partnership with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and the Arts of Switzerland, in supporting people at every stage of their educational journey in tourism.
Education as a priority for the sector will next be highlighted at the Minister Summit hosted by UNWTO at the World Travel Market (London, 6 November).
The legacy of the World Tourism Day 2023 celebrations will live on in the shape of greater investments in the sector's sustainability and a shared commitment to spread the benefits the sector delivers even more widely.
Hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the official celebrations welcomed more than 50 Ministers of Tourism alongside hundreds of high-level delegates from the public and private sectors. The day featured expert-led panels focused on key topics around this year's theme of Tourism and Green Investments, with plans backed up with concrete actions as UNWTO announced several important new initiatives.
This year has been the biggest World Tourism Day ever, and we want to make sure it leaves the biggest impact too
UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: "This year has been the biggest World Tourism Day ever, and we want to make sure it leaves the biggest impact too. From Riyadh, we have joined our global sector around a pledge to promote new destinations, to diversify the economic and social benefits of tourism, and have announced a new school that will transform tourism education in the Middle East."
In Riyadh, Secretary-General Pololikashvili introduced "Tourism Opens Minds", a landmark initiative designed to showcase the powerful role that tourism plays in bridging cultures and fostering peace and understanding. With UNWTO's latest data indicating the sector is well on track to recover as much as 95% of pre-pandemic arrivals numbers by the end of 2023, Tourism Opens Minds is designed to ensure that this strong recovery is joined by a greater emphasis on tourists exploring less-visited destinations. The focus will be on:
To mark the launch, UNWTO unveiled a new symbol for the initiative, made up of the colours of the various flags of the world, and shared a pledge for the sector to unite around. A special pledge, to be supported by Governments, private sector leaders and tourists themselves, was shared with select delegates, calling on them to commit to promoting new and diverse travel destinations.
To ensure that the World Tourism Day 2023 celebrations leave a lasting impact in Riyadh and across the wider region, UNWTO Secretary-General Pololikashvili joined with Saudi Arabia's Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb to announce a joint project focused on creating new generations of skilled tourism workers:
UNWTO is working with the MSC Foundation to deliver a series of sustainability-related education courses on board the MSC Euribia cruise ship.
The initiative builds on the success of the first Global Youth Tourism Summit, held in Sorrento, Italy, in 2022, and will see the creation of the MSC Foundation Youth Lab, a specially-equipped venue on the advanced new eco-ship. One of the core programmes to be offered in the Youth Lab will be "GYTS for MSC: A Sustainable Future for Our Next Generations", designed in close partnership with UNWTO.
The programme will deliver 12 daily two-hour activity sessions on key subjects ranging from ocean health, recycling and climate change to sustainable tourism and social media, all focused on the "sustainability challenge". The activities have been designed to leave the youths free to learn, create and express themselves according to their interests and ideas for the future.
"We are proud to build on the tremendous success of the Global Youth Tourism Summit in Sorrento by extending our partnership with UNWTO to promote youth empowerment and sustainability education," commented MSC Foundation Executive Director Daniela Picco. "The new MSC Foundation Lab on MSC Euribia will offer an innovative venue for children and teenagers to engage in sustainability-focused activities. Our new custom-designed programme 'GYTS for MSC: A Sustainable Future for Our Next Generations' has been specially conceived to empower young people to learn, create, and express themselves while addressing key sustainability issues such as marine conservation, climate change and responsible tourism. By making our young guests the centre of these activities, we aim to raise awareness of the challenges facing humanity and equip our next generations with the tools they need to create a better world."
Alessandra Priante, Director of the Regional Department for Europe at UNWTO added: "After the immense success of our first Global Youth Tourism Summit, which brought together children from every corner of the world, we are very excited that GYTS will not only go across borders but also across the seas and oceans. We are grateful to the MSC Foundation for their continued support in highlighting the central role that youth can play in building a sustainable tourism of the future. We are proud to support MSC as they continue to educate and empower children and youth to become more conscious, committed and engaged."
The MSC Group is committed to taking comprehensive action through the MSC Foundation to raise awareness of the big challenges facing humanity and to provide its young MSC Cruises guests with tools that inform and motivate through an understanding of its programmes and initiatives across four focus areas: the Environment (including marine conservation), Education, Community Support and Emergency Relief. This includes inviting young cruise guests to become Junior Ambassadors of the Foundation and running dedicated activities that equip them to voice the right of our younger generations to live in a better world.
UNWTO and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will work together to promote education and professional development in tourism.
As the United Nations specialized agency for tourism, UNWTO has identified education as one of its key priorities for the sector. While tourism is already a leading employer and a top provide of opportunity, most notably for women and youth, UNWTO is working to expand access to education, training and jobs and to support those already working in the sector to develop professionally.
We are working to break down barriers between jobs, skills and training and so deliver on tourism’s massive potential as an employer
UNWTO’s Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili notes: “Our vision is to provide anyone interested in the tourism sector access to the many and varied opportunities it offers, no matter where they are in the world. We are working to break down barriers between jobs, skills and training and so deliver on tourism’s massive potential as an employer.”
Saudi Minister of Tourism, H.E. Ahmed Al Khateeb, says “Investing in human capital development is an investment in all our futures. This is a landmark agreement that prioritizes people with a focus on the power of e-learning. Collaborating with UNWTO, we can ensure that development opportunities are accessible worldwide, building the workforce necessary to support a thriving and sustainable future for the sector.”
Against the backdrop of the ITB Berlin, UNWTO signed an agreement with the Ministry of Tourism of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first of its kind, the agreement is focused on the creation of training and quality certification programs in the Kingdom. The training will have a global reach and be built around collaboration in the following areas:
This web story was initially published on March 8, 2023. Since its initial release, there has been significant progress that extends beyond the initial scope detailed in the article. For the most current information, please reach out to us at iei@unwto.org.