Journal of tourism [No. 9] 69 THE ORGANIZATION OF YOUTH TRAVEL AT GLOBAL LEVEL Claudia Olimpia MOISĂ "1 Decembrie 1918" University of Alba Iulia, Alba Iulia, Romania Abstract At global level there are various associations and professional organizations aimed at promoting tourism in general and youth travel in particular. Sure, international organizations play the most important role because they include members from all over the world, but regional and national organizations shouldn’t be neglected, because they contribute at the development of youth travel in their areas and have a rather important role in regional integration. To understand how youth travel is organized internationally, this paper presents the main governmental and non-governmental organizations who play an extremely important role in developing and promoting youth travel by starting legislative projects and organizing joint actions, especially towards training young people in jobs related to tourism and leisure time, educating youth in the spirit of eco-tourism or getting them directly involved in maintaining and preserving tourism heritage. Key words: youth tourism, tourism organizations, models of organization for youth travel. JEL classification: L31, L83 1. INTRODUCTION The main object of this paper is to present how youth travel is organized by reviewing the main international bodies in the field and three organizational models at European level. Regarding the approach method of the chosen theme, we selected and analyzed the most important international organizations in youth travel, which have a special role in promoting youth mobility, as well as organizational models of this type of tourism in European countries with tradition for tourism, namely France, Germany and Italy. The main reason for choosing this research topic is the fact that currently there is an acute lack of studies in the field of youth travel, except for a few papers that tangentially approach the researched issue. It is about the studies conducted by certain national bodies and institutions, such as, for example, the paper Le tourisme des jeunes written by the National Board of Tourism of France in 2002, which highlights the main organizations in French youth travel. This paper tries to emphasize a few of the issues that were not approached in previous researches and tries to create a comprehensive picture of how youth travel is organized. 2. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN YOUTH TRAVEL The first youth travel organizations emerged in France: the Central Organization for Camps and Activities for Youth and the Education League were founded in 1944, the Léo Lagrange Federation in 1950, La Federation Unie des Auberges de Jeunesse (FUAJ) in 1956 and Union des Centres Sportifs et de Plein Air (L’UCPA) in 1963. As a result of the scale that social tourism took at global level, it was considered appropriate to establish in 1963 the International Bureau of Social Tourism (B.I.T.S.), an international association that primarily aims to favour the development and promotion of social tourism at international level. Regarding its internal structuring, B.I.T.S. includes three categories of members: • Active members, who can be fewer than ten because they form the General Assembly of the Bureau. They are natural or legal persons who conduct their activity in social tourism and obey the principles of individual freedom guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the provisions of the Declaration of Montreal “Pour un vision humaniste et sociale du tourisme” (BITS, 1996); • Honourable members of public right – are public persons who handle the management of public services in social tourism and who enjoy the prerogatives of public power, being the official representatives of the state or of regional communities; • Honorary members – the Board of B.I.T.S. can award the title of honorary member to all natural persons who deserve this distinction. The working bodies of B.I.T.S. are: General Assembly – congregates at least once every two years; The Board of Directors; The Executive Committee, comprising a president, a vice-president and a treasurer, representing the executive office of the Board of Directors; and General Secretariat with headquarters at Brussels. In order to ensure effectiveness at global level, B.I.T.S. created regional sections that function in