This is why it has attempted to participate in joint reflection with the large world and regional organizations which in one capacity or another share in its preoccupations and which are likely to contribute to the implementation of a universal, coherent and efficacious effort.
Tourism is an irreversible social, human, economic and cultural fact.
Its influence in the sphere of monuments and sites is particularly important and can but increase because of the known conditions of that activity's development. Looked at in the perspective of the next twenty-five years, in the context of the phenomena of expansion which may have heavy consequences and which confront the human race, tourism appears to be one of the phenomena likely to exert a most significant influence on Man's environment in general and on monuments and sites in particular. In order to remain bearable this influence must be carefully studied, and at all levels be the object of a concerted and effective policy. Without claiming to meet this need in all its aspects, the present approach which is limited to cultural tourism constitutes, it is believed, a positive element in the global solution which is required. Cultural tourism is that form of tourism whose object is, among other aims, the discovery of monuments and sites.