Impact Story
World Tourism Organization
(UNWTO) – UN Innovation Toolkit

The world is changing so fast. My organization, the World Tourism Organization, is a multilateral institution that gathers over 150 Member States and more than 500 private sector affiliate members so one has to be attuned to the various developments that are going on across the world to keep abreast of cutting-edge innovations. Our collaboration with the UN System Staff College on innovations and the UN Innovation Toolkit helps us do just that.

There are many benefits to working with the Staff College and we have worked on a number of initiatives together. In 2021 we continued to mainstream and contextualize the UN Innovation Toolkit. We also collaborated on events like the “UNSSC live with UNWTO on the UN Innovation Toolkit: Partnerships to Achieve the SDGs” as well as the “Summer Research Programme” led by UNSSC and IE University.

The collaborations are great displays of how public and private sector stakeholders can come together to stimulate innovation. At UNWTO we support entrepreneurs and help them grow. We do this through mentoring and connecting entrepreneurs with funding and pilot project opportunities. We seek to generate social impact through innovative technological solutions. The UN Innovation Toolkit continues to be an inspiration for UNWTO staff. It gets used each day. In particular, we use it to build partnerships. This means its impact is spread far and wide, all through the global tourism value chain, like in the areas of technology adaptations and digital transformation.

Using some of the tools and strategies in the Toolkit, we have been able to strengthen the global tourism innovation ecosystem, made up of governments, institutions, corporations, investors, education centres, accelerators, and entrepreneurs (start-ups and SMEs). We are working to continue developing programmes based on a flow of knowledge and funding to speed up transformation processes.

There are innovation related projects that we are particularly proud of. These include the first SDGs Global Startup Competition where we collaborated with the likes of Globalia, Qatar Airways, Qatar National Tourism Council, Amazon Web Services, Mastercard, Google, Amadeus, IE University, Telefónica, IDB Lab and Plug and Play. Another is the Top 25 Innovators Working for a More Sustainable and Innovative Tourism catalogue. This initiative helps Member States and the private sector access solutions. The success of these programmes can be partly attributed to the knowledge that we gained from the Partnerships Module of the UN Innovation Toolkit. Our initiatives have led to startups getting support from venture capitalists, launching projects with governments, and having their solutions tested in other geographic locations.

I would strongly recommend UNSSC to any organization interested in honing their skills and keeping in touch with best practices and cutting-edge research on innovations. There’s no doubt that the UN Innovation Toolkit is a preeminent instrument for multilateral agencies. I don’t think there’s any equivalent parallel. It certainly stands out on its own.