The World Tourism Organization is a United Nations organization. It deals with the development of tourism worldwide. Headquartered in Madrid, it is made up of 158 Member States, six territories and more than 500 members from the private sector, educational institutions and tourism associations.

As explained on the UNWTO website, the organization advocates tourism aimed at “economic growth, development and environmental sustainability”. It aims to establish tourism as a “political priority” in the period up to 2030.

Zurab Pololikashvili has been a Georgian since his election as UNWTO Secretary-General to the General Assembly on 1 January 2018.

The UNWTO was founded in 1947 in The Hague (Netherlands) as the Meeting of Official Tourism Organizations. In the 1950s he established his headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and in the mid-1960s he strengthened his relations with the United Nations. In 1970, new statutes were approved, and it went from being an NGO to an intergovernmental organization with the name that we now know: World Tourism Organization. In 1976, he established the General Secretariat in Madrid until today.