As a founding Member State, joining in 1975, Israel has played an active role in UNWTO's work and continues to serve on several important Committees and bodies. Following on from the official visit of Israel's Ministry of Tourism, to the UNWTO headquarters in Madrid in July, the UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili led a delegation to Israel for a series of high-level discussions around shared priorities.

In Jerusalem, Secretary-General Pololikashvili held a bilateral meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel Eli Cohen. Mr Pololikashvili commended Israel's active role in tourism governance and its commitment to several UNWTO priorities for the sector.

  • Israel is an elected member of the Task Force on Redesigning Tourism for Future. Alongside Spain, Israel was chosen to represent the region of Europe in this UNWTO subsidiary body.
  • Israel also serves as member of the UNWTO Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness for the period 2019-2023.
  • Discussions explored possibilities of deepening relations with Israel around shared priorities for tourism. The focus here was on topics including tourism innovation and entrepreneurship and also investments in tourism.

Also in Jerusalem, Secretary-General Pololikashvili and the UNWTO delegation received a warm welcome at the Ministry of Tourism, to discuss the deepening of cooperation between UNWTO and Israel. Discussions focused on shared priorities for tourism both in the country and across the wider region, most notably education, innovations, sustainability, data collection, accessibility, legal instruments

Tourism for Rural Development: Israel's Best Tourism Villages

To conclude the official visit, the UNWTO delegation visited Kfar Kama, named as one of the Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO in 2022. The village was given the award in recognition of its commitment to harnessing the power of tourism to preserve and celebrate its unique local culture. The Israeli village of Neot Semadar was also selected to be part of the Best Tourism Villages Upgrade Programme.

Advancing Tourism Innovation

Recognizing Israel's focus on innovation and digital transformation, the UNWTO delegation met with leading representatives of the country's start-up community. Led by UNWTO Executive Director Natalia Bayona, the delegation worked with local innovators to identify the benefits that innovation and digital transformation can deliver both within tourism and in other economic sectors.

  • UNWTO invited the start-up community to take advantage of its leading support network for innovators, including the various UNWTO innovation programs and competitions.
  • To date, Israel participated in all UNWTO global competitions and challenges with 7 winners selected from more than 150 applicants.
  • Executive Director Bayona led discussions exploring potential opportunities to further cooperate on capacity building, training and sharing knowledge related to the innovation expertise the country has when it comes to startups, entrepreneurship in the tourism sector and how they can mentor others to scale up their projects.

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About UN Tourism

The World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.

As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UN Tourism promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.

Our Priorities

Mainstreaming tourism in the global agenda: Advocating the value of tourism as a driver of socio-economic growth and development, its inclusion as a priority in national and international policies and the need to create a level playing field for the sector to develop and prosper.

Promoting sustainable tourism development: Supporting sustainable tourism policies and practices: policies which make optimal use of environmental resources, respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities and provide socio-economic benefits for all.

Fostering knowledge, education and capacity building: Supporting countries to assess and address their needs in education and training, as well as providing networks for knowledge creation and exchange.

Improving tourism competitiveness: Improving UN Tourism Members' competitiveness through knowledge creation and exchange, human resources development and the promotion of excellence in areas such as policy planning, statistics and market trends, sustainable tourism development, marketing and promotion, product development and risk and crisis management.

Advancing tourism's contribution to poverty reduction and development: Maximizing the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction and achieving the SDGs by making tourism work as a tool for development and promoting the inclusion of tourism in the development agenda.

Building partnerships: Engaging with the private sector, regional and local tourism organizations, academia and research institutions, civil society and the UN system to build a more sustainable, responsible and competitive tourism sector.

Our Structure

Members: An intergovernmental organization, UN Tourism has 160 Member States, 6 Associate Members, 2 Observers and over 500 Affiliate Members.

Organs: The General Assembly is the supreme organ of the Organization. The Executive Council take all measures, in consultation with the Secretary-General, for the implementation of the decisions and recommendations of the General Assembly and reports to the Assembly.

Secretariat: UN Tourism headquarters are based in Madrid, Spain. The Secretariat is led by the Secretary-General and organized into departments covering issues such as sustainability, education, tourism trends and marketing, sustainable development, statistics and the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), destination management, ethics and risk and crisis management. The Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Department carries out development projects in over 100 countries worldwide, while the Regional Departments for Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East serve as the link between UN Tourism and its 160 Member States. The Affiliate Members Department represents UN Tourism's 500 plus Affiliate members.

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