The World Youth Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) have formed a strategic partnership to further support and advance the youth, student and educational travel market, worth USD 182 billion in 2013.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by David Chapman, Director General of WYSE Travel Confederation and Taleb Rifai, UNWTO’s Secretary-General during the 98th Session of the UNWTO Executive Council in Santiago de Compostela, Spain last month.

As part of the signed agreement, we will be working together to build awareness and proactively implement a number of projects across different aspects of the rapidly growing youth, student and educational travel sector.

This will include working on definitions of terminology in the market, research, plus the application of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics; given the number of international youth trips is expected to reach 300 million per year by 2020, the application this code has never been more essential.

UNWTO 2“WYSE Travel Confederation has proudly worked closely with the UNWTO for many years,” explains David Chapman. “I was honoured to sign our first MoU, which signifies the next step in our relationship and will see us cooperating on a range projects to support best practice and drive this growing market.

“I am also delighted to confirm that Carlos Vogeler, Director-Executive Secretary of Members Relations and Regional Director for the Americas at UNWTO will be speaking at our 23rd World Youth and Student Travel Conference - WYSTC 2014 - which is taking place in Dublin this September.”