Guatemala: good practices and social tourism on ISTO's agenda.

Guatemala hosted the "5th Conference on Accessible Tourism, Latin America and the Caribbean", which took place from August 20 to 22 2019 in Panajachel, Sololá.

This activity was organized by the Consejo Nacional para la Atención de las Personas con Discapacidad - CONADI (National Council for the Attention of Persons with Disabilities) and the Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo - INGUAT. As part of this Conference, the Director of ISTO Americas, Veronica Gomez, led a workshop on good practices from Latin America and then made a presentation entitled "Social Tourism, a Tourism for All".

A program for seniors

Making the most of her visit to Guatemala and invited by INGUAT, the director also had the opportunity to support the launch of the social tourism programme for seniors set up by this ISTO member organisation. In order to contribute to the well-being of elderly people in financial difficulties, and following the recommendations of ISTO and the WTO Global Code of Ethics, this programme aims to further strengthen tourism as a driver of development, while raising awareness among tourism operators and reducing seasonality. This program consists of eight specialized and well-designed tours, during which tourist destinations that can be visited without major difficulty with leisure activities complementary to the tour experience are taken into account, in order to support this Guatemalan clientele. For this first phase, 240 seniors will have the opportunity to discover beautiful tourist destinations in Guatemala!