The Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili, said on Monday that countries must invest in people in order to achieve development.
In addition, he pointed out that 50% of young people who work in the tourism sector have only reached the second year of high school.
Pololikashvili spoke as he led the launch of the first challenge of the UNWTO beside Save the Children in the Dominican Republic.
The challenge consists of a competition for young people who have enterprises linked to the tourism sector, but whose social impact has benefits in education.
“It is about mobilizing an innovation ecosystem throughout Central America and the Caribbean that helps, not only the entrepreneurship tourist, but that entrepreneurship is reversed in educational improvement”, said Alba Rodríguez, executive director of Save the Children Dominican.
The challenge has two categories. The first is New Technologies, which are people or startup that promote the use of technology to provide solutions to the tourism and education sector.
The second is Local Impact, which is the people or startup that promote transformation and social improvement, and that belong to the tourism and education sector.
Applications to participate in the competition will be open until June 25, 2022. The winning projects will be selected based on various criteria such as the degree of innovation, their viability and sustainability, and will be invited to the Tourism Tech Adventure in the Dominican Republic, which will take place in November 2022.
Tourism for the SDGs
The projects must be aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and with technology. They must be framed in one (or several) of the following areas:
– The destination management or the private management of solutions/products/services developed around and education as tourism and education products.
– The offer setup seeking the balance between sustainable development and the profitability of the project, maximizing its positive impacts.
– The market connection and user experience in all phases of the journey.
With 258 million children and adolescents globally, without school opportunities or access to education, the UNWTO wants to support initiatives of (digital) education and innovation of startup and small and medium-sized companies, which will be very important in the coming years for the reactivation of tourism.
