World Tourism Day is marked annually on September 27th. To celebrate this day Mongolia has organized a State Olympiad “Grand Tour” between 21st and 27th September. Currently over 100 students from 14 different national universities and institutes will compete in the State Olympiad with their talents and abilities. The State Olympiad will conclude with a students’ academic conference on Friday September 27th.
Mongolia joined the World Tourism Organization in 1990.  Mongolia has since celebrated World Tourism Day with certain themes around the sector from 1997. World Tourism Day 2012 was celebrated last year in Mongolia under the theme of Tourism and Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development.

This year the theme of the day will be “Development of National Tourism”.

The World Tourism Organization is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of developing sustainable and eco-friendly tourism, trends, markets, marketing and human resources. It`s membership includes 155 countries across the world.

In 1979 the 3rd session of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) General Assembly issued a resolution to mark September 27th as World Tourism Day. Member countries have been celebrating the occassion since 1980.