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Tourism and Competitiveness Strategic Pillars

Our solutions are integrated across the following areas:

• Competitive and Productive Tourism Markets. We work with government and private sector stakeholders to foster competitive tourism markets that create productive jobs, improve visitor expenditure and impact, and are supportive of high-growth, innovative firms. To do so we offer guidance on firm and destination level recovery, policy and regulatory reforms, demand diversification, investment promotion and market access. 
• Blue, Green and Resilient Tourism Economies. We support economic diversification to sustain natural capital and tourism assets, prepare for external and climate-related shocks, and be sustainably managed through strong policy, coordination, and governance improvements. To do so we offer support to align the tourism enabling and policy environment towards sustainability, while improving tourism destination and site planning, development, and management. We work with governments to enhance the sector¡¯s resilience and to foster the development of innovative sustainable financing instruments.
• Inclusive Value Chains. We work with client governments and intermediaries to support Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), and strengthen value chains that provide equitable livelihoods for communities, women, youth, minorities, and local businesses. 

The successful design and implementation of reforms in the tourism space requires the combined effort of diverse line ministries and agencies, and an understanding of the impact of digital technologies in the industry. Accordingly, our teams support cross-cutting issues of tourism governance and coordination, digital innovation and the use and application of data throughout the three focus areas of work.

Tourism and Competitiveness Theory of Change 

Examples of our projects:

• In , a US$955m loan is supporting the Government¡¯s Integrated Infrastructure Development for National Tourism Strategic Areas Project. This project is designed to improve the quality of, and access to, tourism-relevant basic infrastructure and services, strengthen local economy linkages to tourism, and attract private investment in selected tourism destinations. In its initial phases, the project has supported detailed market and demand analyses needed to justify significant public investment, mobilized integrated tourism destination masterplans for each new destination and established essential coordination mechanisms at the national level and at all seventeen of the Project¡¯s participating districts and cities.
• In , a series of projects totaling US$450m in lending and IFC Technical Assistance have contributed to the sustainable growth of the tourism sector by enhancing access to enabling infrastructure and services in target regions. Activities under the project focused on providing support to SMEs, capacity building to institutions, and promoting investment and enabling environment reforms. They resulted in the creation of more than 10,000 jobs and the registration of more than 30,000 businesses. As a result of COVID-19, the project provided emergency support both to government institutions (i.e., Ministry of Tourism) and other organizations such as the National Tourism Promotion Board to plan, strategize and implement initiatives to address effects of the pandemic and support the sector¡¯s gradual relaunch, as well as to directly support tourism companies and workers groups most affected by the crisis. 
• In , an Economic Diversification Project has a strong focus on sustainable tourism development.  The project is contributing significantly to the COVID-19 recovery, with its focus on the creation of six new tourism destinations, attracting new private investment, and building the capacity of government ministries to successfully manage and market their tourism assets.  This project aims to contribute to the development of more circular economy tourism business models, and support the growth of women- run tourism businesses.  
• Through the Rebuilding Tourism Competitiveness: Tourism Response, Recovery and Resilience to the COVID-19 Crisis initiative and the Tourism for Development Learning Series, we held webinars, published insights and guidance notes as well as formed new partnerships with Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, United Nations Environment Program, United Nations World Tourism Organization, and World Travel and Tourism Council to exchange knowledge on managing tourism throughout the pandemic, planning for recovery and building back better. The initiative¡¯s key has been downloaded more than 20,000 times and has been used to inform recovery initiatives in over 30 countries across 6 regions.
• The Global Aviation Dashboard is a platform that visualizes real-time changes in global flight movements, allowing users to generate 2D & 3D visualizations, charts, graphs, and tables; and ranking animations for: flight volume, seat volume, and available seat kilometers.  Data is available for domestic, intra-regional, and inter-regional routes across all regions, countries, airports, and airlines on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis from January 2020 until today. The dashboard has been used to track the status and recovery of global travel and inform policy and operational actions.

Featured Data

We-Fi WeTour Women in Tourism Enterprise Surveys (2019)

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Featured Reports 

Global

•  (2023)
• (2022)
•  (2020)
•  (2018)
•  (2018)
•  (2018)
•  (2017)
•  (2017)
•  Å·ÃÀÈÕb´óƬ, 2016)
• . World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and World Bank, (2015)
•  (2013)

Country-Specific

•  (2020)
•  (2018)
• . Africa Development Forum (2014)

COVID-19 Response

Global

• (2022)
•  (2020)
•  (2020)  
•  (2020)
•  (2019)
•  (2018)

Country -Specific

•  (South Africa) (2020)
•  (South Africa) (2020)
•  (Fiji) (2020) with IFC

Featured Blogs

• Louise Twining-Ward and Alba Suris,
• Fiona Stewart, Samantha Power & Shaun Mann,   | October 12^th 2021
• Mari Elka Pangestu,  | April 30^th 2021
• Hartwig Schafer,  | July 23^rd 2020
• Caroline Freund,  | March 20^th 2020

Featured Webinars

• Destination Management for Resilient Growth. This webinar looks at emerging destinations at the local level to examine the opportunities, examples, and best tools available.
• Launch of the Future of Pacific Tourism. This webinar goes through the results of the new Future of Pacific Tourism report. It was launched by FCI Regional and Global Managers with Discussants from the Asian Development Bank and Intrepid Group.
• Circular Economy and Tourism. This webinar discusses how new and circular business models are needed to change the way tourism operates and enable businesses and destinations to be sustainable.
• Closing the Gap: Gender in Projects and Analytics. The purpose of this webinar is to raise awareness on integrating gender considerations into projects and provide guidelines for future project design in various sectoral areas.
• WTO Tourism Resilience: Building forward Better. High-level panelists from Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Jordan and Kenya discuss how donors, governments and the private sector can work together most effectively to rebuild the tourism industry and improve its resilience for the future.