The Instituto para la Calidad Turística Española y la Sostenibilidad (ICTES), member of the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, will celebrate the 7th Global Sustainable Tourism Conference in Jerez de la Frontera from 12 to 16 June. On Thursday, 13 June, the Chairman of UNE, Alfredo Berges, took part in the round table “International Vision: Steps for a Qualisustainable tourism future , during the first day of the Congress, which brought together the cream of world tourism.
During his speech, Alfredo Berges highlighted that Spain is a benchmark in international standards of quality, safety and sustainability in the tourism industry. UNE and ICTES have led the International Technical Committee for Tourism and Related Services for over two decades, within the framework of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), where more than 100 countries and 20 major international organisations such as the UN Tourism, HOTARC and ANEC have taken part.
In this ISO Committee, numerous ISO standards have been published, many of which are developed from Spanish initiatives and based on UNE standards, on topics such as spas, accessible tourism, tourist information offices and measures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19, thus exporting Spanish knowledge and technology around the world.
One of the projects presented at the Congress was the UNE Specification, led by ICTES, with the support of UNE, designed to help tourism organizations contribute to the SDGs. The UNE 0083 Specification Contribution of tourism organisations to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Requirements and recommendations were published on 5 June. This document was based on a ICTES specification, which had already been tested on the market with great success, as it is now implemented by over 300 companies.
ICTES is a member of UNE and participates in its Board of Directors. 
