Weekly Report - 29 November 2007 (ISSN 1741-7422)

COLOMBIA | Tourism. Colombia hosted the general assembly of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in Cartagena de Indias between 23 and 29 November. Some 800 delegates from 120 different countries attended. President Alvaro Uribe delivered a stark message: "because of terrorism, we have not received tourists." He said the nadir was 2001, the year before he was elected, when Colombia received 534,000 visitors. In 2007, this will have more than doubled to 1.35m, he said, setting the ambitious target of 4m tourists by 2010. The secretary general of the WTO, Francesco Frangialli, said that Colombia was "a stable and peaceful country". The tourism minister, Luis Guillermo Plata, concurred although he conceded that "there are places where you cannot travel".