World TOURISM Day 2024

Theme – TOURISM and PEACE

Message from António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General for World Tourism Day:

Tourism brings people together.

On this World Tourism Day, we reflect on the profound connection between tourism and peace.

Sustainable tourism can transform communities – creating jobs, fostering inclusion and strengthening local economies.

By valuing and preserving cultural and natural heritage, it can help reduce tensions and nurture peaceful coexistence.

Tourism can also promote economic interdependence between neighbours, encouraging cooperation and peaceful development.

At the same time, tourism broadens horizons. Every traveller can be an ambassador, engaging respectfully with local populations, recognizing our diversity and shared humanity, and the values that unite us all.

As we celebrate tourism, let us travel responsibly, build bridges, and promote mutual respect among cultures and nations.

Together, we can harness the power of tourism to advance peace and prosperity for all.

Here are some interesting facts on global tourist destinations –

1. Canada has the most lakes in the world. With over 3 million lakes, 9% of the country is fresh water.

2. Haiti has been so badly deforested that there are practically no trees left.

3. Suriname is almost entirely covered in jungles (over 91% of its land), and most people live along the coast.

4. 99% of Libya is covered in desert, making it one of the most arid places in the world.

5. At Thingvellir in Iceland, you can see two tectonic plates (the North American and Eurasian) meeting above the surface of the earth. You can even go diving between them.

6. The unspoilt forests of Siberia in Russia account for almost 25% of the world’s forests and are responsible for producing most of the world’s oxygen.

7. The island of Okunoshima in Japan is inhabited entirely by bunnies.

8. The Falkland Islands in the UK have 350 sheep for every person. Only about 3,000 people live here, and, naturally, wool is their major export.

9. Exumas Island in the Bahamas is home to swimming pigs.

10. The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is famously home to numerous cats. They even have a press secretary dedicated to them.

11. Almost 3% of the ice in Antarctica is made up of penguin urine.

12. Japan has “turtle tunnels” running under railway tracks to save them from being run over by trains.

13. India is the most diverse country in the world in almost every way – culturally, economically, geographically, racially, linguistically, ethnically, and religiously.

14. Zalipie is a village in Poland where all the buildings are decorated with painted flowers.

15. The people of Papua New Guinea speak over 820 languages, the most in any nation. Together they comprise 12% of the total world languages.

16. Ethiopia follows a traditional calendar based on the Coptic Orthodox Church that is seven years behind the rest of the world. This is because they never changed the proposed year of Jesus’ birth with the rest of the Christian world.

17. The small town of Caldari di Ortona in Italy has a free wine fountain that offers locally made wine and is open to anyone.

18. Vatican City’s famous Swiss Guard wear uniforms inspired by renaissance paintings by Michelangelo, Raphael, and Jacopo Coppi.

19. Monaco is smaller than New You City’s Central Park, covering just 0.8 square miles. It is also the smallest permanently inhabited nation in the world.

20. With an average height of 1.8 m above sea level, the Maldives is the lowest nation on earth.

21. Singapore is the largest country in the world without any farms or agriculture-based economy.

22. About ⅓ of the world’s airports are located in the USA, and at any given time there are over 61,000 people up in the air.

23. France covers 12 time zones, more than any other country. The United States comes second with 11, and Russia third with 9.

24. Conversely, the whole of China operates on Beijing time despite covering 5 whole time zones.

Source: 24 Unusual Travel Facts You May Not Know | Travel.Earth