Increasing competitiveness

Benefits and Affiliation Procedure

Affiliate Members

Benefits and Affiliation Procedure

Joining the UN Tourism Affiliate Members allows your entity to achieve local, regional, national and global visbility through the network and channels of UN Tourism. The Affiliate Members is a fundamental tool in increasing competitiveness of the private sector actors in the tourism sector.

What do we offer?

  • Interactive Platform
    ​The Affiliate Members offers an interactive platform for members to communicate and encourages collaboration and is exclusively available to Affiliate Members.
  • Networks
    ​The UN Tourism Networks serve as a venue for active collaboration where UN Tourism Member States and Affiliate Members can interact, share and access relevant information. Furthermore, they can benefit from the platform to generate, disseminate and apply specialized knowledge in order to take advantage of the great potential to address pressing tourism-related issues of common interest from a variety of sectors. ​UN Tourism Working Groups are open to members who wish to exchange expertise on specific tourism segments.

​The UN Tourism Affiliate Members serves as the major gateway for alliances and collaboration between the private and public sectors in tourism

  • AM Newsletter
    ​The AM Newsletter is a service that enables members to share their initiatives and projects with the entire AM community, establish contacts with prospective business partners and promote their services to other members.
  • Use of UN Tourism Affiliate Members Logo
    Upon formal approval, Affiliate Members are allowed, and encouraged, to include the UN Tourism Affiliate Members logo on their website and/or stationary to give visibility to their membership.
  • Publications and Reports
    The Affiliate Members publications, jointly produced with interested Affiliate Members, address topics of interest from the perspective of public-private partnerships to support the advancement of knowledge in tourism. Based on a compilation of Affiliate Members case studies and real-life examples, they can serve as models for many destinations and companies. 
  • Access to E-Library, UN Tourism Barometer and UN Tourism Statistical Data
    ​The Affiliate Membership includes access to the UN Tourism E-Library, offering an unparalleled coverage of research and information in the area of tourism and giving access to over 1,100 UN Tourism publications including books, journals along with UN Tourism Barometer and UN Tourism Statistical data.

Affiliation Procedure

Affiliate Membership of the UN Tourism shall be open to the following entities, as far as their activities are related to the aims of the UN Tourism and/or fall within its competencies:

  • intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations;
  • destination management organizations and tourism promotion bodies, as well as bodies subordinated to territorial entities without political competence;
  • professional associations, foundations and labour organizations;
  • academic, educational, vocational training and research institutions;
  • commercial entities and associations; and
  • other entities that are directly or indirectly concerned with tourism.

According to the Statutes of the Organization, natural persons cannot be Affiliate Members.

The established procedure to join the UN Tourism Affiliate Members is the following:

STEP 1 – Fill out the Application Form and submit the supporting documents

STEP 2 – Internal Verification by the UN Tourism

  • The UN Tourism will check that the information required in the admission process has been received and verified its eligibility and compliance with the criteria set out in the Affiliate Members' legal framework.
  • The Affiliate Members and Public-Private Collaboration Department will contact you if requires any additional information from you.

STEP 3 – Endorsement from the Government of the State in which headquarters is located

  • Only when the above paragraph applies, the UN Tourism will request the endorsement from the Government of the State in which the headquarters of the candidate is located.
  • In accordance with the Guidelines for States on Criteria for Support of Affiliate Membership, adopted by the General Assembly in 2017, "through the endorsement, the State is supporting the affiliation of the candidate to the UNWTO", bearing the responsibility of verifying that the candidate complies with the admission requisites established in the Charter of Affiliate Membership.

STEP 4 – Report of the Committee on matters related to Affiliate Membership

  • Upon receipt of the letter of support from the Government, the application shall be circulated to the Members of the specialized Committee on matters related to Affiliate Membership, subsidiary body of the Executive Council, for consideration in accordance with the established criteria and according to the admission procedure set out in the legal framework of the UN Tourism Affiliate Membership.
  • The Committee on matters related to Affiliate Membership shall submit its report to the Executive Council on the suitability of candidatures for provisional admission.

STEP 5 – Provisional Admission by UN Tourism Executive Council

  • The Executive Council meets twice a year and may provisionally admit Affiliate Members at its meetings. The Affiliate Members provisionally admitted by the Executive Council will enjoy the recognition of all the rights and obligations of Affiliate Membership. In this regard, the entity shall assume its obligation to pay the prorated portion of the established annual contribution (2.900 €) based on its date of admission.

The Affiliate Members and Public-Private Collaboration Department will contact the candidates that are provisionally admitted as Affiliate Members of the organization and will indicate to them the next steps to be taken to enjoy the benefits of the Affiliate Membership.

STEP 6 – Admission by the UN Tourism General Assembly

  • The General Assembly meets in ordinary session every two years. All candidatures provisionally admitted by the Executive Council have to be subsequently presented to the General Assembly at its next session for ratification, as stipulated in the Statutes of the organization.

Other consideration

  • UN Tourism joined the SEPA banking system (Single Euro payments area) in its modality B2B, which at present includes 34 countries (The list of countries is available here). SEPA is a system to carry out payments in Euro currency in a simple, secure and effective manner among entities based in Europe. It is accessible to accounts in banks abiding by the scheme B2B inside the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Monaco and San Marino).