UNWTO Secretary General To Step down Next Year

(BY travelafricanews.com) The Secretary General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is to step down at the beginning of 2008. Frangialli made this known while addressing the Executive Council of the UNWTO in Jeju Island, Korea and noted that his stepping aside will allow for a smooth transition before the normal end of his final term of office.

Francesco Frangialli is Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization. He served as Deputy Secretary-General from January 1990 to September 1996, when he assumed the post of Secretary-General ad interim.

He was elected to the top post of the Organization by the General Assembly in 1997 for the period 1998-2001. He was re-elected as Secretary-General in 2001 for the period 2002-2005 and again in 2005 ýfor the period 2006-2009. He led the Organization’s conversion into a specialized agency of the United Nations, which took effect in December 2003. Mr. Frangialli has an extensive background in public administration and served from 1986 to 1990 as Director of the Tourism Industry in the French ministry responsible for Tourism.

He has a degree in economics from the Paris School of Law and Economics, studied at the National School of Administration (ENA) and is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, where he was a lecturer from 1972 to 1989.