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15 January 2021 H.E Shaikha Mai Meets Members of the Bahraini Diplomatic Corps in Madrid, Spain as part of Her Excellency’s World Tourism Organization Secretary General’s position nomination
H.E Shaikha Mai Meets Members of the Bahraini Diplomatic Corps in Madrid, Spain as part of Her Excellency’s World Tourism Organization Secretary General’s position nomination

 

H.E Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities and the Kingdom of Bahrain’s candidate for the position of Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization, met, on 14 January 2021,  with a number of members of the diplomatic corps accredited in Madrid. The meeting was attended by His Excellency Mr. Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and Her Excellency Mrs. Fatima Abdullah Faris Al Dhaen, Director of the Organizations Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of her campaign tour to support her bid and candidacy for the position.

Bahrain’s candidate for the post of United Nations World Tourism Organization Secretary-General, H.E Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa has highlighted her vision for the future of UNWTO to diplomats accredited in Madrid. H.E Shaikha Mai, the President of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA), explained how her strategy depended upon seven pillars and stressed the need to be relentless in defining and delivering achievable outputs that maximize contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
 
H.E explained how she would be a dynamic leader of UNWTO and would work devotedly to ensure that UNWTO becomes a living example of sustainability, diversity, integrity and responsibility, stressing out the urgent need to tackle out the tourism sector’s current exceptional circumstances. Indeed,   UNWTO has a moral imperative to help alleviate the plight of those at the lower end of the industry’s employment ladder placed by the lockdown of tourism globally in danger of extreme poverty, H.E highlighted.

In addition, the meeting also highlighted Her Excellency’s plans to activate and implement all aspects and types of tourism and its crucial role in creating development, such as cultural tourism, environmental tourism, entertainment tourism, medical tourism etc.

Her Excellency’s fist pillar strategic vision focuses on “Crisis Management and Tourism Relaunch”, whereby the required recovery plans and strategies to resume the tourism activities, alleviate suffering, support and implement creative methodologies after Covid-19 pandemic will be provided. 

The second pillar sheds light on “Financing and Membership” while the Third pillar stresses the importance of “Education, Training and Youth” through a pioneer international scholarship program sponsored by the private sector and international financial institutions to encourage increasing youths to join the tourism sector. H.E Shaikha would seek,  as part of her vision, to implement and enact the mechanisms of the digital revolution’s transformation, apply creative methodologies in order to support innovative approaches to tourism development and marketing. Moreover, Her Excellency’s vision advocates intensified cooperation with international organizations to assist similarities between WTO and other UN entities. A special pillar section in her pioneering vision is dedicated to the benefits and advantages of public-private partnerships, stressing the importance of supporting the Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), facilitating financial assistance, reaching markets, training and capacity building.