The International Council of Tourism Partners (ICTP) is pleased to announced the Regional Tourism Organization of Southern Africa (RETOSA) has joined the alliance.  Recently, ICTP held its general meeting and RETOSA held its board meeting in early July in Seychelles. Leaders from both organizations took this opportunity to meet and in so doing, signed an MOU, with RETOSA joining ICTP as a partner association.

The Regional Tourism Organization of Southern Africa (RETOSA) is a SADC institution that brings together the 14 fascinating countries of the Southern part of Africa – Angola, Botswana, DR Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

ICTP Chairman Juergen T. Steinmetz said: “RETOSA is a leading organization for cooperation in Africa with a focus also on tourism. ICTP has a strong and growing membership from Africa. It was a logical step to propose a cooperative effort between the two organizations.

“ICTP is building to critical mass and general recognition by year end of 2012 and are putting in place web-based support and service systems at tourismpartners.org and greengrowth2050.com. RETOSA will be invited to join with ICTP at upcoming events in Africa.

As part of the agreement, RETOSA plans to encourage its members to become ICTP destination members, which will allow ICTP to support those destinations as well. In addition, both organizations will share web portal links on their respective websites.

RETOSA believes that sustainably-developed tourism offers the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries the opportunity to drive economic growth, boost job creation, increase export earnings, attract investment, and alleviate poverty. This fits right in with ICTP’s mission for quality and green tourism growth.