Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau chairman Chalaka Gajabahu was elected Vice Chair (VC) of the United Nations World Tourism Organization Competitiveness Committee (UNWTO).
The Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness (CTC) is one of the technical committees of the UNWTO and it is a subsidiary organ of the Executive Council and was set up at the 95th session of the Executive Council in Belgrade, Serbia in May 2013.
“In my capacity as Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, under the aegis of the Minister of Tourism Harin Fernando I understand the importance of fine tuning a dialogue mechanism between the public sector and the private sector to improve tourism competitiveness.”
“This opportunity will undoubtedly give me a platform to further develop and enhance the competitiveness landscape which is a vital tool in tourism development globally”
Since its establishment in 2013, CTC focused its work mainly on assessing the state of knowledge on the basic concept of “tourism competitiveness” and identifying its key factors. This process has also included identifying, developing and harmonising concepts, models and operational definitions used in the tourism value chain.
The UNWTO pays emphasis to build synergies and strategic alignments in the harmonisation of the related activities of the Secretariat as well as other collaborating organisations/entities to ensure consistency and consensus in the delivery of the outputs and reinforce the official position of the Organization.
To provide UNWTO Members and other tourism stakeholders with a comprehensive and concise, operational, applicable and globally relevant conceptual framework, it is important to establish a common ground for a clear harmonised understanding of operational definitions used in the tourism value chain; with quantitative and qualitative factors.
