In October of 2004 the World Tourism Organization and George Washington University convened a Tourism Policy Forum in Washington, D.C. to stimulate dialogue and share experiences among international tourism practitioners and assistance providers, and to evaluate sustainable tourism’s role in promoting environmentally sustainable economic growth in the developing world.

A Washington Declaration on Tourism as a Sustainable Development Strategy was released following the forum, wherein governments, international aid agencies and the world’s leading universities agreed to make sustainable tourism development a top priority in their strategies to reduce poverty and meet other UN Millennium Development Goals, such as gender equality and environmental conservation.

In a keynote presentation (33KB PDF), U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios gave an overview of USAID’s recent activities in the tourism sector, and presented the Agency’s strategic goals for utilizing well-planned tourism activities to help fulfill its overarching global development objectives. In his address, Administrator Natsios stressed the need for community involvement to ensure that tourism is sustainable. “Properly planned tourism requires good natural resource management and good local governance to protect and enhance the resources on which it depends,” he said, adding that USAID offers training in these areas because “capacity building is the essence of development.”