Gazette Staff CAIRO, May 10, 2018 - Tourism Minister Rania el-Mashat conferred with the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili, on boosting co-operation between the Ministry of Tourism and the UN organisation in 2019. The meeting was held on Thursday on the sidelines of the 44th session of UNWTO's Middle East committee in Sharm el-Sheikh. They discussed the reassessment of hotel classification.They looked into the use of technology and other ways to support innovation and entrepreneurship in the travel, tourism and hospitality business. Mashat praised the role of the UN organisation in supporting tourism in all its 156 memberstates. She said that she was looking forward to more co-operation between Egypt and UNWTO in the future. UNWTO, it was agreed, would send an expert to reset the hotel classification system here to match international criteria and guarantee quality services for tourists. The talks also tackled a human resources training and development strategy that fitted the country's tourism market. El-Mashat said that about 30 per cent of the tourist influx came from Arab countries. Pololikashvili said UNWTO was ready to provide Egypt with all the technical support it required.
