Free entry for World Tourism Day
The doors of the Vatican Museums will be open on Thursday 27 September, on the occasion of World Tourism Day. Visitors will enjoy free entry to the Papal Galleries during the usual opening hours of 09.00 a.m. - 06.00 p.m. (last entry at 04.00 p.m.).
Promoted by the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), World Tourism Day is celebrated worldwide every 27 September. The theme chosen for the 2012 Session, "Tourism and Energetic Sustainibility: powering sustainable development", is consistent with the current "International Year of Sustainable Energy for All" promulgated by the United Nations, with the aim of bringing to the fore "the need, to ensure sustainable development, of better acess to energetic services and sources of reliable energy at a reasonable cost, economically valid, socially aceptable and ecologically rational".
The Holy See has participated in the initiative of World Tourism Day since its first session, considering it an opportunity for dialogue with civil society, offering its concrete support, based on the Gospel, and regarding it also as an occasion to raise awareness throughout the Church of the importance of this sector at economic and social levels, and particularly in the context of the New Evangelisation.