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DICASTERY FOR PROMOTING
INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Message for World
Tourism Day 2021
Tourism for Inclusive Growth
The Person Behind the Data
[The following message was given by His Eminence Card. Peter Kodwo
Appiah Turkson, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral
Human Development, on the occasion of World Tourism Day, which is
celebrated each year on 27 September]
On the occasion of World Tourism Day 2021, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral
Human Development wishes to recognize the significant impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on the business and workers engaged in the tourism sector, especially
part-time, low-paid workers who qualify for governmental subsidies, and those
workers who now find themselves without any economic support. Specifically, we
would like to give special attention to the theme chosen by the World Tourism
Organization for this year, Tourism for Inclusive Growth, as well as to
the Organization’s appeal to recognize that this is “an opportunity to look
beyond the statistics of tourism and recognize that behind every number, there
is a person”.[1]
In the course of his Pontificate, Pope Francis has frequently encouraged the
Catholic faithful and all people of goodwill to “go beyond” the numbers to “meet
the person in difficulty; to exercise that creativity which enables one to find
solutions to an impasse; to invoke reasons of human dignity in facing the
rigidity of bureaucracy” and “promote the social and economic wellbeing of the
whole of humanity, offering everyone the opportunity to pursue his/her own
development.”[2]
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Holy Father encouraged the entire
human family, saying “we cannot return to the false securities of the political
and economic structures we had before the crisis.”[3]
We need economic systems that give everyone access to the fruits of creation and
the basic necessities of life: land, lodging and labor. This is, in fact, the
inclusive growth, or in the language of Catholic Social Thought, the
integral human development that the Dicastery would like to promote on World
Tourism Day 2021. A development for every person, for all the dimensions of the
person, that respects the earth, our ‘common home’. The pandemic has shown us
how we are all connected to one another. In this light, tourism in one country
suffers if people in other countries cannot travel due to health restrictions.
“We have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared
destination.”[4]
Therefore, it is necessary to work towards an inclusive approach to tourism and
resist the temptations of individualism and nationalism that are too common in
our contemporary society. Only in this way can we avoid the “variant” of the
virus that spreads when we foment a sick economy that only allows a few very
rich people to possess more than all the rest of humanity, and when production
and consumption models destroy the planet.
Therefore, on this World Tourism Day, the Dicastery encourages all to commit to
a tourism that allows for encounters between people and in diverse places, where
the admiration of beauty can foster respectful lifestyles for others and the
planet.
We appeal to bishops and those responsible for safeguarding tourism to maintain
close collaboration with local authorities in order to ensure a tourism that
respects people and nature, and that promotes a just and inclusive economy. In
this way, tourism can help build a world in which the full potential of each
human being can be reached.[5]
We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to all those who support,
both materially and spiritually, the tourism sector and the people who now find
themselves in situations of economic difficulty caused by the suspension of
tourism. Pastors in many local churches, along with their collaborators, and
with the support of national and local Caritas groups, have multiplied efforts
to find the best solutions to remedy situations of social need. This is a
concrete example of inclusive development: that “new sense of fraternity, for
mutual help and esteem”[6]
that we desperately need.
Cardinal Peter K. A. TURKSON
Prefect
[1] UNWTO, World Tourism Day 2021 - Background Note,
https://www.unwto.org/world-tourism-day-2021.
[2] FRANCIS,
Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants in the World
Congress of Accountants, 14 November 2014,
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa
francesco_20141114_congresso-mondiale-commercialisti.html.
[3] FRANCIS, "The COVID-19 Crisis Reveals What is in our Hearts," Op-Ed
article in New York Times, Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 2020.
[4] FRANCIS, "The COVID-19 Crisis Reveals What is in our Hearts," Op-Ed
article in New York Times, Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 2020.
[5] Cf. FRANCIS, Encyclical Letter
Laudato si’, n. 84.
[6] FRANCIS,
Message for the Fourth World Day of the Poor, 15 November 2020,
n. 7.
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