The World Bank has been an active player in global tourism, providing a range of services that have helped to improve the industry, World Bank Programme Leader Cecile Thioro Niang said last week.

According to Niang, the World Bank Group (WBG) has been engaged in tourism directly and indirectly since its inception, providing analytical advice that helps countries understand their competitive position as drivers of growth. In addition, the bank works with countries to improve destination quality and management, remove regulatory constraints to access and growth, protect valuable natural and cultural assets, and provides finance for strategic public sector investments.

“Today, the aggregate WBG tourism portfolio and pipeline stands at above US$3.8 billion, representing 179 projects across the WBG that is delivered through a range of instruments,” Niang told delegates attending the three-day United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Conference in Montego Bay.

“We provide US$1.1 billion in specific support for tourism activities in the bank’s active portfolio and have another US$1.4 billion in our financing pipeline. In addition, the International Finance Corporation has 72 private sector investments in hotels and tourism-related infrastructure for approximately US$1 billion. And over the past 10 years, the Multilateral Guarantee Agency has executed 10 projects, facilitating FDI of close to US$130 million. In other words, nearly every area within the World Bank Group is active in the sector,” she explained.

Niang said that “a successful, well-managed tourism industry needs a lot of different players with the same vision and working effectively together. This requires coordinating development across the various arms of government, mobilising the right type of investment from the private sector and attracting international partners,” she said.

“Jamaica is a great example of building social capital across public and private sectors,” Niang told the conference, which was organised by the Government of Jamaica, the UNWTO, World Bank Group, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

She said that a regular difficulty of projects at the World Bank Group is that “the complex nature of tourism makes measuring its impact difficult”. While the bank is making advances in measurement, it hoped that “in co-sponsoring the conference, the leaders, experts and practitioners would share their insights, learn from each other and agree to collaborate to develop new ways to measure and leverage tourism for development”, she said.

“The benefits of tourism stretch far and wide. Tourism allows us to share humanity’s most valuable cultural and environmental treasures with the world,“ Niang argued. “Tourism enables us to teach skills and provide jobs. And tourism is a force for social justice because it creates opportunities for young people who grew up in poverty to do so much more in life. Tourism can be a driver of social justice because it helps end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.”