CAIRO: The Arab Tourism Organisation (ATO) has urged all Arab countries to celebrate the Arab Tourism Day on 24th February. The event coincides with birthday of Ibn Battuta and is marked this year under the slogan of “sustainable development of tourism.

Kuwait News Agency quoted ATO President Bandar Al Faheed as saying, “The achievement of sustainable tourist development in the Arab countries needs the provision of an integrated vision in the long term. Sustainable tourism requires the effective participation and participatory vision of all parties to achieve the goals within the framework of sustainable development.” “Tourism industry is still witnessing an expansion and a creativity to find new branches like green tourism, environmental tourism, responsible tourism, sports tourism, cultural tourism and other,” he said.

“Sustainable tourism aims to serve economy of countries and their local societies without harming natural, environmental or heritage wealth through increasing number of visitors to the heritage areas and sites,” he added.

He underlined the essential sustainability and industry of tourism as methods for permanent positive development of communities. He noted that ATO expects that up to 195 million tourists, more than three times the current number, will visit the Arab region by 2030. More than 1.2 billion foreigners visited the entire world in 2017 while the Arab region attracted about 74 million.

WAM