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Skriven 2006-09-28 12:31:18 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service - Press Release
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                               VIS-Press releases

TOURISM MUST PROMOTE HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

VATICAN CITY, SEP 26, 2006 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the
Pope - dated September 8 and signed by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then secretary
of State - to Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the World Tourism
Organization (WTO), for the 27th World Tourism Day, which is due to be
celebrated on September 27. The Message has been published in various languages
including English.

Cardinal Sodano passes on the "cordial greetings of His Holiness Pope Benedict
XVI," to the organizers of World Tourism Day, the theme of which this year is:
"Tourism enriches." And he observes how this subject "offers the opportunity to
reflect on how further to qualify a culture of travel and human mobility such
as exists in the different types of contemporary tourism."

"Tourism is an undisputed source of well-being," writes the cardinal, "because
it helps to drive the economies of nations. ... Furthermore, in the diverse
sectors connected with tourist activity millions of persons are employed," and
"in the reciprocal welcome between visitor and host one can realize that
exchange of the goods of the earth and of culture which renders human life more
fraternal and united."

Cardinal Sodano continues by recalling how the WTO "has on numerous occasions
recalled that tourism is above all an affair of human beings. The enrichment
that it can produce must not, therefore, be simply economic or material,"
rather it must "promote an authentic human and social development thanks to the
growing opportunity that it offers for a sharing of goods, for rich cultural
exchanges, for contemplating natural or artistic beauty, for a comparison
between different mentalities, traditions and religions."

In order for this to be possible, it is necessary that all individuals and
groups active in the tourism sector "encourage the formation of specific
competencies and then offer dynamic guarantees for the welcoming of tourists."

"Only thus will the 'new Areopagus' of tourism and leisure become a resource
for true human enrichment for all, without excluding those who come from
underprivileged conditions on account of their natural or socio-cultural
origins."
.../TOURISM DAY/SODANO:FRANGIALLI VIS 060926 (350)

SUMMARY

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