London, UK, 8 July 2005 - We are all bound in solidarity with the victims and families of the madness in London today. The tourism industry is always bound up in terrorist horror because of the size and scope of the sector. We feel particularly saddened for the UK and London, dampening its great success with the 2012 Olympics. There is one evident conclusion from the perspective of our sector and one less so.

* The evident one - the tourism industry must strengthen its support for the war on terror: must help in the drive to intensify security systems: must insist on parallel, linked measures to upgrade facilitation and above all must help poor countries with the technology, capacity building and financing to keep the standards high.

* And this latter point leads to the second less evident conclusion — while we will support any G8 action to intensify the war on terror; they must not be distracted from the strategic goals of the war on poverty and more support for Africa.

The strongest message the G8 can send to the world is to strengthen their resolve to eliminate debt completely: increase aid to 0.7% of their GDP urgently and make an honest defensible start on pro poor, fair trade policies. And in the trade arena, tourism can be a leading edge export promotion vehicle and a tool for local level community development, sustainable growth and jobs

The best long-term blow to terrorists is to close their recruiting grounds amongst those languishing in hopelessness in the world’s poorest countries.

Geoffrey Lipman
President ICTP