Counterpart International Calls for Nobel Peace Prize in Tourism

Counterpart International president Lelei LeLaulu called on the Nobel Peace Prize committee to consider tourism’s role in conflict resolution.

Speaking to reporters about the recently-held Global Ecotourism conference in Norway, the head of an international development agency confirmed his call for the Nobel Peace Prize to recognize the linkages between sustainable tourism and peace.

Noting “tourism is the only real peace dividend,” Lelei LeLaulu, president of the non-profit Counterpart International called on the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which convenes in Norway, to seriously look at how tourism prevents conflict and maintains peace.

Delivering a keynote speech to the Global Ecotourism Conference in Oslo in the presence of Queen Sonja of Norway, Mr. LeLaulu asserted “tourism is the world’s largest and fastest growing industry” but he also pointed out tourism represented “the largest voluntary transfer of money from the ‘haves’ to the ‘have-nots’ in history.”

He urged Norway to focus its development priorities onto helping poorer countries build tourism infrastructures which enable visitor revenues to enhance the health, wealth, culture and environment of destinations “the essential elements of peace.”

Noting the UN World Tourism Organization was forecasting a billion annual arrivals in just four years, LeLaulu said poorer countries “had the most desirable destinations but needed help to ensure tourism revenues could benefit local people.”

LeLaulu asked reporters to imagine a Norwegian receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway for championing the lucrative linkages between tourism, development and peace.