Vatican's World Tourism Day Message

July 24, 2012: World Tourism Day Message was released on Tuesday by Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, President of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People. “Tourism and Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development” is the theme for this year’s World Tourism Day, which will be celebrated on 27^th September, revealed a Vatican communique. It is promoted every year by the World Tourism Organization (WTO). The Holy See has adhered to this initiative from its first edition, said Cardinal Veglio.

It considers World Tourism Day is an opportunity to dialogue with the civil world and offers its concrete contribution, based on the Gospel, and also sees it as an occasion to sensitize the whole Church about the importance of this sector from the economic and social standpoint and, in particular, in the context of the new evangelization, revealed Cardinal Veglio in his message.

This year’s edition of the World Day the Holy See made the theme proposed by the WTO its own. It is in harmony with the present “International Year of Sustainable Energy For All” promulgated by the United Nations with the objective of highlighting “the need to improve access to reliable, affordable, economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sound energy services and resources for sustainable development”, the Cardinal added.

According to the World Tourism Organization statistics, it is foreseen that during the year in progress the quota will reach one billion international tourist arrivals, which will become two billion in the year 2030. To these should be added the even higher numbers involved in local tourism. This growth, which has positive effects, but also lead to serious environmental impact like immoderate consumption of energy resources, increase in polluting agents and the production of waste.

Tourism not only contributes to global warming: it is also a victim of it. The concept of “sustainable development” is already engrained in our society and the tourism sector cannot and must not remain on the margin, the Council message warned.

It is true, as the WTO Secretary General points out, that “tourism is leading the way in some of the world’s most innovative sustainable energy initiatives. However, we are also convinced that there is still much work to be done.

In this area also the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People wishes to offer its contribution based on the conviction that “the Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere”. It is not up to us to propose concrete technical solutions but to show that development cannot be reduced to mere technical, political or economic parameters.