TOURISM MUST PROMOTE HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

VATICAN CITY, SEP 26, 2006 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message dated September 8, from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then secretary of State, to Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), for the 27th World Tourism Day, which is due to be celebrated on September 27. The Message has been published in various languages including English.

  Cardinal Sodano passes on the "cordial greetings of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI," to the organizers of World Tourism Day, the theme of which this year is: "Tourism enriches." And he observes how this subject "offers the opportunity to reflect on how further to qualify a culture of travel and human mobility such as exists in the different types of contemporary tourism."

  "Tourism is an undisputed source of well-being," writes the cardinal, "because it helps to drive the economies of nations. ... Furthermore, in the diverse sectors connected with tourist activity millions of persons are employed," and "in the reciprocal welcome between visitor and host one can realize that exchange of the goods of the earth and of culture which renders human life more fraternal and united."

  Cardinal Sodano continues by recalling how the WTO "has on numerous occasions recalled that tourism is above all an affair of human beings. The enrichment that it can produce must not, therefore, be simply economic or material," rather it must "promote an authentic human and social development thanks to the growing opportunity that it offers for a sharing of goods, for rich cultural exchanges, for contemplating natural or artistic beauty, for a comparison between different mentalities, traditions and religions."

  In order for this to be possible, it is necessary that all individuals and groups active in the tourism sector "encourage the formation of specific competences and then offer dynamic guarantees for the welcoming of tourists."

  "Only thus will the 'new Areopagus' of tourism and leisure become a resource for true human enrichment for all, without excluding those who come from underprivileged conditions on account of their natural or socio-cultural origins."
.../TOURISM DAY/SODANO:FRANGIALLI                VIS 20060926 (350)