Jordi Hereu announces that Toledo will host the 126th UN Tourism Executive Council meeting

The Minister for Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, during his speech at the meeting held in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)

Toledo will host the 126th UN Tourism Executive Council meeting on 10 and 11 June 2026. The capital of La Mancha has been designated as host city at the Executive Council of this United Nations organisation held in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), which ratified the proposal presented by the Spanish delegation. This means that Spain will once again host an international tourism summit at the highest level one year after the one held in La Granja in May 2025.

For the Minister for Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, the choice of Toledo is a great opportunity to showcase the cultural values of our country. Toledo is a city "that symbolises the tourism we want in the world", said the minister from Riyadh, where he took part in the 26th session of the UN Tourism General Assembly, which proclaimed the Emirati Sheikha Al Nowais as the new Secretary General.

Riyadh was the capital of the global tourism industry during the event. Along with the change of leadership at this organisation, which has its permanent headquarters in Spain, the summit served to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the creation of UN Tourism (formerly the World Tourism Organisation) and to approve the so-called Riyadh Declaration on the Future of Tourism, which recognises the transformative role of AI and emerging technologies.

Spain, a benchmark in tourism transformation

As a leading country in transformative tourism policies, Spain was represented in Riyadh at the highest level by Minister Hereu and the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rosario Sánchez. Both Hereu and Sánchez have given their full support and commitment to the new secretary general to lead the sustainable transformation of the tourism sector.

Jordi Hereu, who took advantage of the Riyadh summit to hold an intense agenda of bilateral meetings, presented to the member countries of the organisation the development of an integrated plan for the use of Artificial Intelligence in Tourism, as well as the general lines of the Spain Tourism Strategy 2030, recently approved by the Council of Ministers.

Non official translation