What is the Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness (CTC)?

The Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness (CTC) is one of the technical committees of the UNWTO and it is a subsidiary organ of the Executive Council. The Committee was established at the 95th session of the Executive Council in Belgrade, Serbia in May 2013 (CE/DEC/7(XCV). Its Rules of Procedure and the composition were approved by the Executive Council at its 96th session (Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, August 2013) (CE/DEC/9(XCVI). 

Since its establishment in 2013, CTC focused its work mainly on assessing the state of knowledge on the basic concept of “tourism competitiveness” and identifying its key factors. This process has also included identifying, developing and harmonizing concepts, models and operational definitions used in the tourism value chain.

Work priorities

(a) To support the Organization in fulfilling its normative role;

(b) To provide a dialogue mechanism between the public and private tourism stakeholders and academia to give guide in building and strengthening tourism competitiveness policies and strategies; and

(c) To build synergies and strategic alignments in the harmonization of the related activities of the Secretariat as well as other collaborating organizations/entities in order to ensure consistency and consensus in the delivery of the outputs and reinforce the official position of the Organization. 

Objectives

Provide UNWTO Members and other tourism stakeholders with a comprehensive and concise, operational, applicable and globally relevant conceptual framework to set the scene and contribute to establish a common ground for a clear harmonized understanding of:

i) concepts, models and operational definitions used in the tourism value chain;

ii) the quantitative and qualitative factors that explain competitiveness at the destination level which may be translated into technical guidelines facilitating a methodology for destinations to identify and evaluate their own factors of competitiveness. 

Outcomes

As an outcome of the work of the CTC, the 22^nd Session of the General Assembly held in Chengdu, China (11-16 September 2017) adopted as Recommendations key definitions. Along with these definitions the Committee also focused on identifying the key quantitative and qualitative factors for “tourism competitiveness” under two categories: i) governance, management and market dynamics, and ii) destination appeal, attractors, products and supply. 

Composition of the CTC (2015-2019) Member States (2015-2019)

Croatia
Gambia
Italy (Vice-Chair)
Maldives
Mexico
Namibia
Peru (Chair)
Qatar
Republic of Korea

Representative of the Associate Members

Aruba (2015-2017)
Macao, China (2017-2019)

Representative of the Affiliate Members

Consolidated Tourism and Investment Consultants Limited (CTICO), Jamaica, Chairman of the Affiliate Members Board (2015-2017) 

Instituto de Calidad Turística Española (ICTE), Spain, Chairman of the Affiliate Members Board (2017-2019)

Meetings of the CTC:

1st Meeting: 25 August, 2013, Victoria Falls, Zambia /Zimbabwe (during 20th UNWTO General Assembly)
1st Virtual Meeting: 27 March, 2014
2nd Virtual Meeting: 3 July, 2014
3rd Virtual Meeting: 22 October, 2014
2nd Meeting: 28 January, 2015, Madrid, Spain
3rd Meeting: 13 September, 2015, Medellin, Colombia (during 21st UNWTO General Assembly)
4th Meeting: 22 January, 2016, Madrid, Spain
4th Virtual Meeting: 21 April, 2016
5th Meeting: 20 January, 2017, Madrid, Spain
5th Virtual Meeting: 2 March, 2017
6th Meeting: 11 September, 2017, Chengdu, China (during 22nd UNWTO General Assembly)
7th Meeting: 19 January, 2018, Madrid, Spain