The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, has received several requests from its member countries to suspend Russia from its ranks.
Posted at 2:49 p.m.
The body’s executive board will meet on March 8 in Madrid, in an emergency session, to consider these requests. Guatemala, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and Ukraine have all called for the suspension of the Russian Federation, also a member of the UNWTO, in response to offensives launched in Ukrainian territory since last week.
“This is the first time in the history of the organization that the executive council will consider a request of this order,” the institution said in a statement on Wednesday. The UNWTO has already officially and categorically condemned Russia’s actions.
The latter received, before the collapse of the tourist sector in 2020, some 25 million annual visitors, taking advantage of the dynamic created by the organization of the Soccer World Cup in 2018. The tourists came mainly from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and from China. In 2019, Moscow was listed as the 45and most visited city in the world, according to data from Euromonitor International.
The mission of the World Tourism Organization is to promote and develop local and international tourism.