UNCTAD will be hosting an Intergovernmental Expert Meeting on ICT and Tourism for Development. The Meeting will take place in Geneva on 30 November – 2 December 2005. The official Notification of the Secretary General has been issued on 7 September 2005 and includes information for participants.

For substantive questions about the Expert Meeting contact the UNCTAD Electronic Commerce Branch or Cécile Barayre-El Shami, Economic Affairs Officer and coordinator of the Expert Meeting on .

For a detailed analysis of the ICT and Tourism phenomenon, please consult the UNCTAD background document in the meeting documents section. For more details please consult Chapter 4 in the annual Information Economy Report 2005.

Tourism is an information-intensive sector and therefore has significantly benefited from ICTs. ICTs enable tourism businesses to make tourism products and services directly available to a large number of consumers, and to interact with them as well as with other tourism producers and distributors. The increasing number of consumers who use the Internet to plan leisure or business trips represents a major incentive for developing countries to organize and develop their tourism supply and its promotion over the Internet.

In order to take full advantage of ICTs and improve their own competitiveness in tourism markets, developing countries have to instil e-business practices effectively among all stakeholders and integrate local tourism providers into Destination Management Systems.

This Expert Meeting will bring together experts from both developed and developing countries, from international and regional bodies involved in ICTs and tourism issues, and from civil society organizations. During the three-day event, they will analyse the process of designing and implementing effective e-tourism strategies and ICT tools from a private and public perspective, based on partnerships among the stakeholders of the tourism industry.

For more information about the Expert Meeting, including nominations, participation and registration, please consult the official expert meeting website, and in particular the official Notification of the Secretary General.

A copy of the completed registration form should be sent to:

UNCTAD secretariat, Intergovernmental Affairs and Outreach Service
Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
fax: +41 22 917 0056
e-mail: correspondence@unctad.org

Registration form: (pdf) or (png) (English); (pdf) or (png) (French)

Map of the UN Palais des Nations: (png) or (jpg) format.

Hotel list: (Excel) or (Openoffice 1.0) or (OpenDocument) format