For many of us September means the end of summer holidays to Ibiza or family trips to Utah and back to the grindstone of work and school.  Although the summer months for most are over, the celebrations certainly are not.  For the 30^th year running, the world’s tourism community will celebrate World Tourism Day on September 27^th.

Since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day.  The purpose of this event 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.

This year the festivities will commemorate in the vibrant country of Ghana with the theme, ‘Tourism - Celebrating Diversity.’ The overarching tone will be to emphasize the importance of the world’s cultural wealth and the role of sustainable tourism.

Coinciding with World Tourism Day, South Africa takes the entire month of September to celebrate and honor the travel and tourism industry. This year, in anticipation of much travel traffic for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Cape Town is getting prepared.  Through its ‘Live It! Love It! Louder!’ campaign, Capetonians are getting ready to welcome the world in 2010.  Check out the Tourism Month’s Celebrate Diversity news in this article highlighting Cape Town.

.travel in turn is celebrating this month by unveiling its Fall Trade Show schedule as well as a special surprise after the Labor Day Weekend. **Hint: a NEW home page look featuring a NEW .travel video.

What you are doing to celebrate the World of Tourism this month?

The Celebrations of World Tourism Day

Featured Many .travel Community Members

Created originally in 1970, World Tourism Day is celebrated each year on September 27^th. This year the occasion was hosted in Lima, Peru and brought together a group of the leading public and private tourism stakeholders, representatives of civil society and of the UN system. This year’s festivities addressed the ever-apparent need for global climate response by the travel and tourism industry.

As part of these celebrations, many organizations took advantage of launching new projects, initiatives, and websites. Among many of the programs featured and discussed, .travel was a reoccurring theme. As a continuation of the celebrations, .travel wanted to welcome these initiatives to the .travel community:

ClimateSolutions.travel was launched to serve as the central gateway of information and available solutions to help the tourism sector respond to climate change. Designed by the UNWTO with the support of Microsoft, ClimateSolutions.travel is a collaborative effort to achieve Climate Neutral Tourism. To learn more and help your organization respond to climate change, please visit www.ClimateSolutions.travel

Argentina.travel was also launched as part of the celebrations of World Tourism Day. Although not in Lima, but in Mar de Plata, Argentina, the site was unveiled as a way for the country to address its need for a dramatic web presence to further engage and educate travelers about all that Argentina has to offer. With a goal of roughly 5.59 million international tourists in 2010, Argentina has made the decision to lead its campaign with www.Argentina.travel (*As stated in “El país ya tiene su sitio web de turismo” on Yahoo! T Noticias)

Earthlung.travel also was part of the discussions in Lima. Although launched last October, Earthlung.travel was featured in Lima for its innovative project and being a pioneer of the travel industry. www.Earthlung.travel focuses on various areas that are quintessential to global climate response such as stopping deforestation, reforestation, use of energy conservation programs, and solving pollution by going to its source. This program aims to make Sri Lanka a carbon neutral to assist destination by 2018.

Although mentioned above are only a select portion of all of the important World Tourism Day initiatives, .travel salutes the efforts of all that participated in the World Tourism Day and look forward to sharing in all of their future successes. In the case that an event or program was not mentioned, .travel welcomes your comments and information.