Governing Bodies

UN Tourism has six regional commissions-Africa, the Americas, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. The commissions meet at least once a year and are composed of all the Full Members and Associate Members from that region. Affiliate Members from the region participate as observers.

The Executive Council is UN Tourism's governing board, responsible for ensuring that the Organization carries out its work and adheres to its budget. It meets at least twice a year and is composed by Members elected by the General Assembly in a ratio of one for every five Full Members.

Specialized committees of UN Tourism Members advise on management and programme content. These include: the Programme and Budget Committee, the Committee on Statistics and the Tourism Satellite Account, the Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness, the Committee on Tourism and Sustainability, the World Committee on Tourism Ethics and the Committee for the Review of Applications for Affiliate Membership.

The Secretariat is led by Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili from Georgia, who ‎supervises 152 personnel at UN Tourism's Madrid Headquarters. Together, they are responsible ‎for implementing UN Tourism's programme of work and serving the needs of Members. ‎The Affiliate Members are supported by a full-time Director at the ‎Madrid Headquarters. The ‎Secretariat also includes a regional support office for Asia-Pacific in Nara, Japan, ‎financed by the Japanese Government and a Regional Office for the Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, opened in 2021. At its 25th General Assembly, Members agreed to open a first Regional Office for the Americas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a Regional Office for Africa in Marrakesh, Morocco. The official languages of UN Tourism are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and ‎Spanish. ‎