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WTO addresses developing country concerns in tourism symposium
On the 22nd and 23rd of February, the World Trade Organization held a Symposium on Tourism Services, with very active developing country participation ?including as speakers.
The purpose of the symposium was 搕o evaluate current
developments in international tourism?of relevance to the ongoing
WTO services negotiations, and especially those developments related
to a proposal from three developing countries, the Dominican Republic,
El Salvador and Honduras, to add a tourism annex to the General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). WTO Members decided to hold an
informal Symposium, in order to be able to invite a wider range of
tourism experts, including from the private sector, as well as to more
freely discuss the issues concerned.
Symposium presentations and discussions were centred upon three major themes. Session I, titled Specificity of Tourism as a Set of Industries Heavily Dependent on Network Services, and its Treatment in GATS, included a statistical overview of current trends in international tourism; a presentation on the complex sectoral economic linkages in tourism and the role of the Tourism Satellite Account (a statistical methodology for measuring the economy-wide impact of tourism); and an overview by the WTO Secretariat of the existing GATS disciplines and commitments.
Session II, titled The Competitive Environment ?Travel Distribution Systems, Access to Information and Issues Related to Passenger Transport, concerned the rapidly changing commercial linkages behind the supply of tourism services, as well as reports on national-level experiences with the entire range of tourism-related issues by Cuba, Jamaica, Portugal and Thailand. Presentations were given on tour operators, global distribution systems (GDS), and travel agents; international tourism and passenger transport; electronic commerce; competition issues, including the existence of anti-competitive practices; and the social, economic and environmental sustainability of international tourism.
Session III was an Open Debate of all the issues concerned. Topics raised in the discussions for the Symposium as a whole included visa-related restrictions (a general problem for almost all aspects of international trade); the imperfect nature of both tourism statistics and tourism classification systems; effects of horizontal restrictions (e.g. lack of guaranteed market access for skilled workers); profit levels of tour operators; and anti-competitive practices in home-country markets, including aviation-related practices.
Introduction by the chairman (2 pages; 29 KB in
Word format)
See also:
>
Press release: Tourism
Symposium at the WTO
>
Programme
Presentations and background materials
Henryk
Handszuh: PowerPoint presentation
Handszuh:
Slides presentation (4 pages; 32 KB in Word
format)
Jos?Quevedo; Note on tourism
statistics relevant to international trade in tourism services
(6 pages; 35 KB in Word
format)
Millennium tourism boom in 2000
(3 pages; 39 KB in Word format)
Results 2000 ?Top 15 tourism destinations in 2000
(1 page; 24 KB in Word format)
List of Tourism Characteristic
Activities (TSA/TCA) (1 page; 261 KB in Word
format)
Inbound tourism consumption by
products and categories of visitors (3 pages; 46 KB in Word
format)
2. Miguel Alejandro Figueras:
揑nternational tourism in the Cuban economy?
(10 pages; 62 KB in Word format)
3. Dale B. Honeck: 揙verview of
GATS disciplines and commitments?/a> (2 pages; 27 KB
in Word format)
Overview of GATS Disciplines and Commitments (As part of Session I: Specificity of Tourism as a Set of Industries Heavily Dependent on Network Services, and its Treatment in GATS) (5 pages; 36 KB in Word format)
WTO Secretariat: 揟ourism Services?/a> (26 pages; 242 KB in Word format)
ICAO
PowerPoint presentation 6.
Richard Smithies: 揂irline views
on the proposed tourism annex to the GATS?/a> (6 pages; 42 KB
in Word format)
Liberalisation
of air transport and the GATS ?IATA discussion paper (15 pages; 42 KB
in pdf format) Presentation
(21 pages; 2.7 MB in Word format)
Jocelyn Lapierre and Duane Hayes:
揟he Tourism Satellite Account?/a>
(26 pages; 137 KB in pdf format)
4. Alan Flook: 揟he
changing structure of international trade in tourism services, the
tour operators perspective?/a> (10 pages; 67 KB in
Word format)
ICAO presentation (7 pages; 34 KB in Word
format)
Attachments
A; B; C: Attachment A: Resolution on a
code of conduct for the regulation and operation of computer
reservation systems ?Attachment B: Code of conduct for the
regulation and operation of computer reservation systems ?
Attachment C: Model clauses for computer reservation systems
(31 pages; 123 KB in Word format)
7. Graham Wason
(5 pages; 34 KB in Word format)
8. Eddie Nuque: 揑s e-commerce a
viable alternative to the traditional travel infrastructure??/a> (2 pages; 27 KB
in Word format)
9. F. Souty: 揅ompetition in International
Tourism?/a> (5 pages; 51 KB
in Word format)
11. Iain T. Christie, World Bank: 揤iability
of International Tourism?/a> (PowerPoint presentation)Contributions
from participants
?(4 pages; 38 KB
in Word format)
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Relevant WTO documents
-
Preparations for the 1999 Ministerial Conference: (15 pages; 80 KB in Word format) ?Corrigendum (1 page; 30 KB in Word format)
Proposal Regarding the GATS (Paragraph 9(a)(ii) of the Geneva Ministerial Declaration) ?Communication from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Honduras. -
Communication from the Dominican Republic, el Salvador and Honduras; Replies to the Comments on the Proposed Annex on Tourism, (4 pages; 42 KB in Word format)
-
Communication from the Dominican Republic, el Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama; The cluster of tourism industries, (8 pages; 309 KB in Word format)
Note:
Downloadable files in Word format and pdf (portable document format).
> Guide todownloading
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