PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Dear IFTTA colleagues and friends,
The 18th IFTTA WORLD CONFERENCE is now scheduled for September 7 – 10 in Malta , the historic island that has
become an attractive venue for international conferences. Preparations are under way by our Malta colleagues Michael
and Jacqueline Tanti-Dougall. Following the great success of the 17th Conference in Vienna in 2005 we are looking
forward to an exciting and enriching conference. A special session on the important issue of “The E-Commerce of
Travel and Tourism” is scheduled, in cooperation with the LEFIS organization, and UFTTA has also indicated its
intention to participate.
Details of the Conference, including a call for papers, should be shortly posted on our website and we urge all of
you to respond, to start preparing your presentations and to register.
Recently, I was in touch with the World Tourism Organization UNWTO concerning cooperation with our organization,
particularly in regards to their idea of developing an interactive web forum on tourism legislation. We pointed out
the role of the IFTTA website, which functions as a repository for our members’ feedback information on tourism
and travel law worldwide, and offered our support by suggesting that IFTTA’s experts should be at their
disposal as facilitators/coordinators of the discussions on their proposed web forum. For IFTTA, this could serve as
an additional channel for acquainting world travel and tourism entities with our members and also enrich our own
deliberations. Of course, IFTTA’s website should continue to grow independently, and we are all pleased by the
wonderful recent response of our members who sent in updates on new cases and other materials. Please continue to do
so!
We are in the process of updating our roster of IFTTA members. The method of registration and payment
of membership fees/subscriptions has been smoothed out, and we can all register now, as explained in this Journal.
We should continue to recruit new members, from among attorneys and executives of travel companies and organizations,
airlines, hotel chains, government departments and the academy. We can extend our reach to wider circles, such as
environmentalists, etc. Our members can insert reports on the Vienna conference (and the next one in Malta ) in the
lawyers’ official publications in their countries (I did that in my country) and refer them to the IFTTA website.
Thus, IFTTA will grow and thrive!
Best wishes,
Dov Kolani
