Holy See's Message for World Tourism Day

(July 09, 2009) "Tourism - celebrating diversity", the theme of World Tourism Day 2009 proposed by the relevant World Organization, opens for us ways of meeting with human beings, with their diversity, their anthropological richness. Diversity is a fact, a reality, but, as Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, it is also a positive factor, something good, and not a threat or a danger, up to the point that the Holy Father wants "people not only to accept the existence of other cultures but also desire to be enriched by them," said the communiqué from Vatican on the occasion of the World Tourism day. Since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day on September 27. This date was chosen as on that day in 1970, the Statutes of the UNWTO were adopted. The experience of diversity belongs to human existence, also because each one's development advances by diversifying steps that promote the person's growth and maturity process, said the Message. It is a progressive discovery, as we compare ourselves with people and everything around us, thus distinguishing ourselves from what is unlike us. In the present time of globalization, cultures and religions approach each other more and more, and that in the heart of all cultures, an authentic desire for peace is emerging. We also see misunderstandings, prejudices and deeply rooted misconceptions that raise barriers and nurture divisions. We must therefore do everything we can to transform discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance into understanding and mutual acceptance, through the roads of respect, education and open, constructive and binding dialogue. From this perspective, tourism is also an occasion for dialogue and listening, inasmuch as it puts people in contact with other ways of living, other religions, other ways of seeing the world and its history.