Chairman, for the next two years, of the Commission for Europe of the United Nations World Tourism Organization will be the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Pavlos Yeroulanos, after his election earlier today by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organisation convened in Korea.

The Minister of Culture and Tourism thanked the members of the UNWTO for the honour bestowed on Greece, and referred to the priorities and objectives set by the Greek Chairmanship, mainly in the management of Tourism by the European Union.

“If we want to bring the world together we cannot pride in the walls we raise but the bridges we build. Access is a political issue. It is about making our world a better place and it should be treated as such. Our job will be to demonstrate the social, economic, political damage created by new walls. In Europe in particular we must work to reverse this dangerous trend”.

Then he clarified that the effort to bring people together would fail, if we did not increase accessibility. “Tourism is not about taking your home to another place but about finding a home in a place that inspires you. To keep places inspiring we need to keep them different. We need to create wealth out of the things that make us proud and not the things that seem familiar. We should respect differentiation in others.”

On the sidelines of the conference Pavlos Yeroulanos signed a co-operation agreement on tourism with his Belarusian counterpart, and later met with Minister of Culture and Tourism of Korea, Mr. Kwang Sik Tsoe, with whom he discussed the forging of cooperation between the two countries.

The Minister of Culture and Tourism will tomorrow visit Abu Dhabi, in order to take part in the proceedings of the World Economic Forum taking place in the United Arab Emirates.