Visit to the Headquarters of the World Tourism Organization (2 November 1982)

On Tuesday, 2 November 1982, the  Holy Father visited the Headquarters  of the World Tourism Organization in Madrid, where he reminded the Secretary General and those in attendance that “the fundamental thing in the phenomenology of tourism is to recognize man as the final cause: contemporary man in his unique and unrepeatable human reality,” not financial gain. 

Mr. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I was pleased to accept the kind invitation to visit the headquarters of the World Tourism Organization, which has the task of promoting tourism, to facilitate understanding and peace between peoples, in the context of respect for the rights and freedoms of man, without distinction of race, language or religion (cf. Statute of the WTO , 3).

I am pleased with the dynamic activity that this Organization carries out in favor of the tourist interests of developing countries, to promote tourism in them that translates into social elevation for those populations and cultural growth for visitors. A complex and delicate function, if we want to ensure that the development of the phenomenon is on a human scale and safeguards the healthy traditions of different civilisations. Such a form of tourism will be a privileged tool for strengthening and multiplying mutual relationships, a source of enrichment for the human community (cf. Gaudium et Spes , 61). And it will help to establish those bonds of solidarity that the current world - troubled by so many wars - greatly needs.

Your merit is that of having been able to indicate, with the collaboration of delegations from over one hundred countries, the characteristics necessary to encourage a leap in quality in the tourism sector. The Manila Declaration (1980) can rightly be considered an essential stage in the history of tourism.

A danger in tourist expansion is that its development is motivated solely by pure economic reasons - neglecting its cultural significance and due respect for ecology - or by the tendency to pass the time, instead of constituting a restorative break for the psychophysical forces expended in work. First of all, we must be able to overcome these negative factors, to then promote the potential positive values ​​of tourism (cf. General Directives for the Pastoral Care of Tourism, Peregrinans in Terra , 8-12).

But it's not enough. In fact, the fundamental thing in the phenomenology of tourism is to recognize man as the final cause: "contemporary man in his unique and unrepeatable human reality" (John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis , 10), in the full truth of his existence, of his personal being and his community being (cf. Ibid. 14); in a word, man in the dignity of his person. Because when you want to enhance the "social", it is best to keep in mind that the "social" is contained in the "human".

Remembering, as was ratified in the "World Meeting" of Acapulco (1982), that man must not undergo self-interested manipulations, but must be "the protagonist of his holidays", is neither a dream nor a utopia. It means placing at the center that element without which the tourism industry would come into conflict with the humanity it claims to help. On the other hand, if tourism is a right, it is also true that it is practiced by man and implies his action. More than a simple rest or a sort of escape, it is a restorative activity for man that must help him "re-create" himself through new experiences, derived from straight and free choices.

Hence the need for adequate training both for the tourist, for the tourist operator on whose honesty and competence he relies, and for the person who offers hospitality. Like any other form of development, tourism - in its various forms - requires development proportionate to moral life. For this reason, it was a coherent gesture on the part of your Organization to have discussed and recommended the need for such effective preparation, appealing to the responsibility of all educators, without which tourism can fall into a modern form of alienation, with squandering of money and time, instead of being a tool for the integral improvement of the person.

As regards work, rightly considered as a necessary prerequisite for tourism, it is not the only source of ethical values. Free time - and therefore tourism as its main component - also constitutes an integrative possibility; and if it is used well, it transforms, for the person, into a capacity for self-education and culture; therefore tourism, in itself, is a value and not a banal fact of consumerism.

Faced with a social phenomenon of such breadth and complexity, it is not surprising that the Holy See places so much interest in it. The Church, in fact, is not a closed society, but has a sense of the multiplication of cultural forms. It moves day by day towards the Parousia, in the continuous "new regime of the Spirit" ( Rm 7,6). For this reason she intends to serve man as he presents himself in the context of the realities of current civilization. To accompany him in his rapid changes (cf. Gaudium et Spes , 2.3.54.55; Peregrinans in Terra , 1); with love and with the hope of a better tomorrow, in which peoples recognize themselves as more brothers, thanks to the peace that presupposes and favors well-experienced tourism.

Gentlemen: According to Plato, the universe that we see is a great shadow that reveals the sun behind it. I hope that your joint activity tends to humanize tourism more and more. And also to allow men to perceive, beyond the shadows of our century, the true Sun of truth and justice, of love and immortality which, projecting itself into space, illuminates it and awaits everyone in its infinite mystery.

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana