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United Nations Tourism Arm to Stick With Current Leader for 4 More Years

Lebawit Lily Girma

Photo Caption: Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, was reelected for another four-year term today at the security council meeting in Madrid. World Travel & Tourism Council

Skift Take

The UNWTO executive council missed a huge opportunity to show leadership when it failed to vote for Bahrain's Shaikha Mai, a respected sustainable tourism leader with fresh ideas for global tourism's recovery. A chance to correct course can still happen at final confirmation proceedings this fall.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization's executive council voted Tuesday to reelect sitting secretary general Zurab Pololikashvili as leader of the UN's tourism body for another four years. The vote from its 35-member executive council, held in Madrid, comes in spite of recent formal objections filed by former UNWTO leaders, including Taleb Rifai, about alleged impropriety by Pololikashvili and the UNWTO as it relates to the election process, such as shortening the candidacy submission window and bumping up the security council meeting to January, instead of holding it at the usual time in May. His sole opposing candidate, Bahrain’s nominee Shaikha Mai and the first female candidate for secretary general that UNWTO has seen, mana

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