BUDAPEST, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The importance of digital technologies in tourism, providing opportunities for innovation and preparing the sector for the future of work, is at the center of World Tourism Day (WTD) 2018 being celebrated here Thursday.

This year's WTD will help to put the opportunities provided to tourism, by technological advances including big data, artificial intelligence and digital platforms, on the map of sustainable development.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) sees digital advances and innovation as part of the solution to the challenge of marrying continued growth with a more sustainable and responsible tourism sector.

"Harnessing innovation and digital advances provides tourism with opportunities to improve inclusiveness, local community empowerment and efficient resource management, amongst other objectives within the wider sustainable development agenda," said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.

The WTD official celebration is held in Budapest, Hungary, a country enjoying steady growth of tourism backed by consistent policy support and a commitment to the digital future. Other celebrations will take place worldwide.

Hailing tourism as "a dominant, ever-growing industry" that provides livelihoods to nearly 300 million people globally, Csaba Domotor, Hungary's minister of state for parliamentary affairs of the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, said: "It is a courageous thing that the conference is about to look at the relationship between tourism and digital technology."

WTD is organized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization every year since 1980.