High-level meeting on
Tourism and Development
in the Least Developed Countries
 

The 49 Least Developed Countries account for only 0.8% of the world's total exports of international tourism services. Yet, tourism is regarded as one of the sectors offering the greatest potential for steady economic growth in these countries, and one of the few economic areas expected to reduce the marginalization of the LDCs from the global economy. In 18 LDCs, tourism is already a prominent economic sector, ranking first, second or third among all export sectors. In 10 other LDCs, tourism has been a less prominent but growing area of activity demonstrating significant progress over the last decade. Overall, at least 6 out of 10 LDCs have placed international tourism at the heart of their development strategy, and expect the sector to be a spearhead of their economic re-specialization. But the structural disadvantages incurred by these countries (poverty, lack of skilled human resources and infrastructure, economic vulnerability) hinder them from benefiting from international tourism as significantly as they would like. Therefore, they hope that the international community will be able to support their relevant efforts to participate in the international tourism economy.

The high-level meeting will examine the main trends in the tourism development performance of the LDCs, with particular reference to the role of tourism in the evolution of the economic specialization of these countries. The various handicaps and limitations they face in developing tourism activities will be highlighted in order to allow effective identification of answers to these issues. The meeting will then focus on the most desirable tourism development policies and strategies pursued or envisaged by the LDCs, in such areas as product specialization, investment, promotion, and relevant multilateral trade policy aspects. The ultimate aim of the event is to identify the main practical needs of LDCs with regard to tourism development, and recommend a range of answers to these needs by the international community. This is expected to facilitate the formulation of an international plan of action to support tourism development in the LDCs. This plan of action will be presented to the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Brussels (14-20 may 2001).

Participation in the high-level meeting includes four government ministers and over 30 senior officials responsible for tourism development policies in Least Developed Countries, as well as many officials and experts from other countries and representatives from several international and regional organizations.