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 adoption of these Statutes is considered a milestone in global tourism. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide.
At its Twelfth Session in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 1997, the UNWTO General Assembly decided to designate a host country each year to act as the Organization’s partner in the celebration of World Tourism Day. At its Fifteenth Session in Beijing, China, in October 2003, the Assembly decided the following geographic order to be followed for World Tourism Day celebrations: 2006 in Europe; 2007 in South Asia; 2008 in the Americas; 2009 in Africa and 2011 in the Middle East.
The late Ignatius Amaduwa Atigbi, a Nigerian national, was the one who proposed the idea of marking September 27 of every year as World Tourism Day. He was finally recognized for his contribution in 2009.
Do you …know it’s World Tourism Day today?
> While Kuala Lumpur is unique, there are numerous places with similar names in other parts of the world. Memphis is found both in Egypt and the United States, while there’s a Waterloo in both Belgium and Canada. So always double check the travel bookings for such places!
> The Netherlands is the country with the tallest population in the world. The average height for men is an incredible 1.82m. At the other end of the scale, Indonesian men are on average 1.58m “tall”.
> Learning a new language will make your travel experiences more authentic. But for English speakers, Mandarin is one of the hardest languages to learn due to its phonetic transcription system. Other languages rated as being quite difficult include Arabic, Japanese and Finnish.
> Should there be an animal zombie apocalypse, you might want to avoid the Falkland Islands. Sheep outnumber people by at least 200:1 on these remote islands.
> You might want to fast-track your Maldives vacation. This nation of islands is reportedly the lowest on Earth and will someday be submerged by the sea. Other low-lying countries are Jamaica, Qatar and the Netherlands.
> We won’t bat an eyelid at the durian but there are many fruits out there that are even more exotic such as wood apple, bread fruit and cotton fruit. The horned melon, for instance, is native to the Kalahari Desert. The fruit has spiky points all over its bright yellow and orange mottled skin.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.
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