Benefits and 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.

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

• Fill out the Affiliate Membership Application Form. Once you have submitted the Application Form you will receive an automatic message.
• Submit to UN Tourism the signed statement of commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and acceptance of the Statutes of the Organization and the obligations of membership. You can ask to for a sample of letter. 
• UN Tourism may request additional information if necessary.

STEP 2 – Internal Verification by UN Tourism

• 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, UN Tourism will request the endorsement from the Government of the State in which the headquarters of the candidate are 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 (CMAM)

• 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 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 them the next steps to be taken.

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 Considerations

• 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).