Professor Francesco Frangialli is the honorary Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the former Director General of Tourism of France.

A civil servant and an author, with an extensive academic background in economy, public law and political science, he is a former student of the renown French Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Career

In 1969-1970, he did his military service as a supply officer in the French Navy.

From 1972 up to 2016, has been a member of the Supreme Court of Audit of France (Cour des comptes).

From 1986 to 1989, he has been Head of the French national tourism administration, and, from 1990 to 2009, Deputy Secretary-general then Secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). In 2003, he led its transformation into a specialized agency of the United Nations.

From 2008 to 2012, he was a professor at Paris 1 University Pantheon-Sorbonne and a teacher on international tourism in various universities, in France and abroad.

From 2017 up to 2022, he used to be the President of a branch of the French National Appeal Court (CNDA) in charge of granting asylum to refugees.

Titles and publications

Francesco Frangialli was the non-executive Chairman of AMFOHRT (the world association for education and training in the tourism sector), a member of the Board of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IHRA), as well as of the Board of the French public company SSIT (tourism engineering in Savoy ski resorts), and the President of the UNTWO STEP Foundation, with headquarters in Seoul. He is an adviser on tourism to the Chinese Province of Guizhou, a member of the Council of the International Mountain Tourism Alliance, and the honorary President of the Tourism Institute of the North-West of China.

His most recent books, published in French with the editor L’Harmattan (Paris), are named “Géopolitique vécue du tourisme international – Les Nouvelles Routes de la Soie » (2017) and « De-ci de-là en suivant les nuages – Un monde qui disparait » (2022).