Family gatherings are usually private, but the family at the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism believes that tourism is a global family and you should be included.

  1. Supporters, board members and supporters of the I.International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) The organization practically met last week as a “global family reunion” hosted by the World tourism network and eTurboNews.
  2. Louis D’Amore founded IIPT 34 years ago and expressed his commitment to welcoming 1000 peace parks. The IIPT has currently established peace parks on all continents except Antarctica
  3. The family reunion heard chapter updates from around the world including Jamaica, Australia, Iran, and welcomed a new chapter in the Maldives.

Family reunions are usually private, but the IIPT board decided to make last week’s virtual get-together public. Peace Through Tourism is, after all, a global family of peace-loving members of the travel and tourism industries everywhere.

IIPT family members present included Dr. Taleb Rifai, former two-time Secretary General of the UNWTO, Ajay Prakash, Vice President and President of IIPT India, Kiran Yadov, Vice President and Co-Founder of IIPT India, Diana McIntyre, President of the Caribbean Chapter, Gail Parsonage, President IIPT Australia, Fabio Carbone and. IIPT Ambassador President IIPT Iran, Philippe Francois, CEO of the World Association for Education and Training in Hospitality and Tourism, Jürgen Steinmetz, Founder of the World Tourism Network and CEO of the Travel News Group, Maga Ramasamy, President IIPT Indian Ocean Islands, Ms. Mmatsatsi, President IIPT South Africa, Bea Broda, filmmaker, Mohamed Raadih, President of the IIPT Maldives Chapter, among others.

IIPT

The International Institute for Peace Through Tourism (IIPT) was born in 1986, the International Year of Peace, with the vision that travel and tourism would become the world’s first global peace industry and that every traveler could be an “ambassador for peace”. The IIPT’s first global conference, Tourism: A Force For Peace, Vancouver 1988, with 800 delegates from 68 countries, was a transformative event. At a time when most of tourism was “mass tourism”, the conference first introduced the concept of “sustainable tourism” as well as a new paradigm for a “higher purpose” tourism in which tourism played the key role in promoting of travel and travel the focus is on tourism initiatives that contribute to international understanding; Cooperation between nations; an improved quality of the environment; cultural enhancement and heritage preservation; Poverty reduction; Reconciliation and healing of conflict wounds; and through these initiatives help to create a peaceful and sustainable world. The IIPT has since organized around 20 international conferences and global summits in various regions of the world, with an emphasis on current case studies that demonstrate and promote these values ​​of tourism.

10-Global-Man-of-Peace-Dr.-Taleb-Rifai-with-Louis-DAmore-and-Peter-Kerkar10-Global-Man-of-Peace-Dr.-Taleb-Rifai-with-Louis-DAmore-and-Peter-Kerkar

In 1990 the IIPT pioneered the role of tourism in reducing poverty by identifying potential projects in four countries in the Caribbean and three in Central America. After the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Summit 1992), the IIPT developed the world’s first code of ethics and guidelines for sustainable tourism, and in 1993 it conducted the world’s first international study on codes of conduct and best practices for tourism and the environment. The 1994 IIPT conference in Montreal: “Building a Sustainable World Through Tourism” was the first major international conference on sustainable tourism. The conference was instrumental in getting the World Bank to start supporting tourism projects aimed at reducing poverty in developing countries. Other development agencies followed and by 2000 the role of tourism in reducing poverty was widely recognized.

The Amman Declaration, resulting from the IIPT Global Summit in Amman, Jordan in 2000, was adopted as an official document of the United Nations. Similarly, the Lusaka Declaration on Sustainable Tourism Development, Climate Change and Peace, which emerged from the Fifth African Conference of the IIPT in 2011, was adopted and widely disseminated by the UNWTO. The conference also resulted in the publication of a book: Addressing the Challenges of Climate Change for Tourism and was instrumental in the 20th General Assembly of the UNWTO, jointly hosted by Zambia and Zimbabwe. The 2015 IIPT Global Symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa, paid tribute to the legacies of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The IIPT has hosted events at the World Travel Market in London every year since 1999 – the last four years at the ITB, Berlin and several Manor Chapter conferences and events in the Caribbean, Australia, India, Jordan, Malaysia and Iran.

In 1992, the IIPT designed and implemented “Peace Parks across Canada” as part of 125 celebrations for Canada’s 125th birthday as a nation. 350 cities from St. John’s, Newfoundland in five time zones to Victoria, British Columbia, dedicated a park to peace on October 8 when the nation’s peace memorial was unveiled in Ottawa and 5,000 peacemakers looked back. Of the more than 25,000 Canada125 projects, Peace Parks across Canada were considered the “most significant”. Since then, the IIPT International Peace Parks have been a heritage site dedicated to each of the IIPT’s international conferences and global summits. Notable IIPT International Peace Parks are located in Bethany Beyond the Jordan, the site of Christ’s baptism. Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world; Ndola, Zambia, site of the crash of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold on his way to a peacekeeping mission in the Congo; DMedellin, Colombia, dedicated on the opening day of the 21st General Assembly of the UNWTO; Sun River National Park, China; and the Catholic Shrine of the Martyr of Uganda, Zambia.

More about the IIPT visit www.iipt.org More about the WTN visit: www.wtn.travel

Interest group peace through tourism in the World Tourism Network: https://rebuilding.travel/peace/

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