Dirk Glaesser

Dr. Dirk Glaesser is Director of the Sustainable Tourism and Resilience Department at the World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism). He oversees global programs that address climate change, sustainable consumption and production, biodiversity, health emergencies and travel facilitation. He played a key role in ending, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), the practice of naming new infectious diseases after places or countries, a change that helped protect communities and tourism destinations from long-lasting stigma. He has also served as an advisor to WHO Emergency Committees for Ebola, Zika and COVID-19.

Dr. Glaesser joined UN Tourism in 1997 and has held various positions, including Chief of the Risk and Crisis Management Department and supervisor of UN Tourism's Consulting Unit on Biodiversity and Tourism.

He is a banker by profession and a Colonel of the Reserve of the German Armed Forces. He received his Ph.D. with magna cum laude from the University of Lüneburg, Germany, and was awarded the ITB scientific award for his pioneering work on Crisis Management.

Dr. Glaesser has authored influential works on resilience, sustainability, risk and crisis management, many of which have been widely translated.