In coming May 11th and 12th, elections to select the successor to Jordanian Taleb Rifai will be held in Madrid, Spain. Mr. Mzembi will contest with five other candidates namely — Márcio Favilla (Brazil), Jaime Alberto Cabal Sanclemente (Colombia), Zurab Pololikashvili (Georgia), Young-shim Dho (South Korea) and Alain St. Ange from Seychelles to lead the organization from upcoming 2018 till 2021 respectively. For eight years at a stretch, Rifai had been controlling the entire global tourism body.
Douglas Mavhembu, Co-head of the UNWTO campaign secretariat confirmed yesterday that Mzembi will partake in the World Tourism, a think-tank for body of speakers and policy creators across the globe. The Swiss city of Lucerne will be the host of the forum from May 4th till 5th of this month.
The forum will be concentrating on various thematic areas of travel and tourism industry. They will also focus on the creation of common understanding on sustainability for tourism development, keeping in mind, UN’s 17 sustainable development goals.
Among other dignitaries, Rifai and Retto Wittwer, chairperson of the advisory board of the World Tourism Forum Lucerne will address the forum. To quote, Mavhembu, ‘the minister will take advantage of the high level forum to pitch highly his campaign to become the next secretary general after Dr Rifai. This will be an opportunity for the minister to share with global leaders of the future evolution of UNWTO, a global agency of the UN. This will be the last push at the highest possible level to make so that we win resoundingly.’
