Tourism body backs down on name change |07 January 2006

In an address to delegates attending the World Tourism Organisation Commission for Africa meeting, held in Seychelles in May 2004, Mr Frangialli said that, despite pressure from officials representing the World Trade Organisation, the tourism body would continue to be known as the WTO.

The WTO secretary-general has now announced however, that, following last year’s accreditation of the WTO as a specialised agency of the United Nations, the UN prefix would be added to the organisation’s official abbreviation.

Although the World Trade Organisation also belongs to the United Nations system it is only a ‘related agency’, the same status held by the World Tourism Organisation before becoming a specialised agency.

The name change decision was approved by the UNWTO General Assembly at a recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal.

The official go-ahead was given early last year when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan gave his consent to adding the United Nations’ initials, and the modification was later approved by the Executive Council.

Mr Frangialli is quoted on the UNWTO website as saying, “Various suggestions were put forward, including attaching the French or Spanish abbreviation to the English to make WTO/OMT, or follow the practice used by the United Nations Secretariat which refers to WTO (Trade) and WTO (Tourism).”

“But since the transformation of the World Tourism Organization into a specialized agency of the UN, strengthening our relationship to the United Nations system, it was felt the best solution was to refer to our own Organization as UNWTO.”

The UNWTO abbreviation remains OMT in French and Spanish where ‘trade’ is translated as ‘commerce’.