Welcoming Statement

Louis D’Amore

May I begin by asking you to show our appreciation to the management and staff of the royal cliff beach
resort and conference center for their welcoming spirit their exceptional world class facility and service and their
outstanding support for our 3 global summit.

The institute was formed in 1986 in response to global issues of the 1980’s - the growing tensions between
east and west; a deteriorating environment; the increasing gap of have and have not regions of the
world - and the growth of terrorism — much of it - as today aimed at the travel and tourism industry.
The main goal in organizing the first global conference on peace through tourism in Vancouver in
1988 was to create a greater awareness of the potential for tourism to be a vital force for peace:
Peace with our neighbors in global village, peace with nature, and peace with future generations
through sustainable tourism development.

For 20 years IIPT has been promoting this ‘higher purpose’ of tourism. It became clear just two weeks
ago that this ‘higher purpose has now gained broad acceptance at the highest levels.
On September 13^th - at the united nations in New York, — UNICEF, ICAO, NEPAD, UNDP, and UNCTA, as well as
ministers of tourism, industry leaders , and NGO’s joined with the world tourism organization in recognizing the key role tourism can play in the overall achievement of the millennium development goals - and the capacity for tourism to generate economic - environmental - and social benefits, as well as inter-cultural understanding and peace among nations.

Our challenge now is to harness the broad acceptance of this higher purpose - into concrete actions and initiatives - and to build the partnering relationships with which to move forward. This is the task before us in the next three days- and to capture our collective insights, wisdom and recommendations in a 21^st century agenda for peace through tourism.

As his Excellency Thaksin Shinawatra, prime minister of Thailand said in his opening message to you -
“this higher purpose of tourism has never been more important to human society.”

On behalf of IIPT and our partner organizations, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to the
Thailand convention and exhibition bureau (TCEB) for their generous support of the summit. As well, we are grateful for the cooperation of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Thailand Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and the agencies of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific.

May I also express our sincere appreciation for the continuing support and sponsorship of:
RCI
Reed Travel Exhibitions
Jordan Tourism Board
Jordanian Airlines
Africa Travel Association
Republic of Unganda
and
Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources, Republic of Zambia
as well as our media sponsors, especially
Eturbo News
Travel World News and
Pattaya Mail
I look forward to our three days together and to
our collaboration in ‘building a culture of peace
through tourism’ knowing that we are indeed one
earth one family.

Thank you -and god bless you all.