COUNCIL OFFICIALS PRESENT TOURISM MINISTRY GUIDELINES

VATICAN CITY, JUL 11, 2001 (VIS) - Archbishops Stephen Fumio Hamao and Francesco Gioia, respectively president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, today presented the council document "Guidelines for the Pastoral Ministry of Tourism," in written statements which accompanied the publication of the document.

Archbishop Hamao noted that "with significant farsightedness, on April 30, 1969 the Sacred Congregation for Clergy, on whom the pastoral ministry of tourism depended at that time, published the General Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Tourism 'Peregrinans in terra', a very important and useful text for pastoral action and, in many ways, well ahead of its time. It did not limit itself to presenting solutions to the problems of that time, but prophetically paved the way in order to face the development of tourism which, at that time, was not completely predictable."

Archbishop Gioia emphasized that "tourism is one of the phenomena which most greatly characterizes modern society. Proof of this is the continual and accentuated growth of tourists on a global level: According to information provided by the World Tourism Organization, in the year 2000 the number of tourists increased by 7.4 percent over the previous year, that is to say, 50 million people more than in 1999, or as many as the United States and Spain receive each year."

He added that "in Europe, which welcomes 58 percent of international tourism, there was an increase of 6.2 percent with 403 million arrivals, about 25 million more trips than the previous year. Income from international tourism last year was US$476 billion. It is predicted that by 2010 international tourists will go from the current 698 million to one billion, and by 2020 will increase by an additional 560 million persons."

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