Rifai said that we should pay more attention to domestic tourism, ",A_court_in_Alicante_ist;which also can activate the economy, create jobs and maintain the confidence of consumers," and stressed that Spain and Portugal "has offset the losses and made that the results of the aerial crisis are not so negative. "
In his speech on "Tourism, a key factor in Iberoamerica" in the Tribune Iberoamericana, forum organized by the Agencia Efe and Casa de America, Rifai has indicated that the closure of most European airports resulted in about potential losses for tourism sector in the Old Continent of around 400 million dollars (300 million euros) a day.
"Currently there are no international guidelines and this is the responsibility of the United Nations, so the WTO present a draft to the Security Council and General Assembly on the protocol to follow," he emphasized.
The secretary general of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), Taleb Rifai,Gustavo_Antepara_will_continue_ata, has estimated this Friday in 2,300 million dollars (1.725 million euro) losses in the European tourism sector caused by the ash cloud of the Icelandic volcano, a figure that excludes damages in the aviation sector.
For this reason, Rifai said: "I have to start working on an international agreement on the protection of consumer rights" to establish "guidelines accepted by all" to debug the responsibilities in these cases and to promote "the information and transparency "in emergency situations.
The WTO stands at 1.725 million of European tourism losses by the volcano.
The representative of WTO-organization that is headquartered in Madrid, has underlined the complications to establish the magnitude of this crisis, because of "confusion" to establish the responsibilities, and that "there is an international agreement to see who should be charge of all those people stuck. "
Establish responsibilities
The maximum representative of the WTO has indicated that it will take months to digest the consequences of this crisis, but stressed that several lessons can be learned from it as vulnerability or that "the world can not function without connections, without people to travel" .
We must pay more attention to tourism interiorSegun sources have clarified this UN agency, the computation could be reduced by the expenditure incurred during these days by tourists who have not been able to travel and trips have been postponed, so that is "very difficult to assess the actual loss."
Rifai has agreed with the calculations of the IATA, which identifies a lost day for the air sector of 220 million dollars (165 million euros) a day, about 1,700 million dollars (1275) since the aeronautical authorities were restricted aerial on 15 April.
