Businesses that are taking responsibility need to be able to secure differentiation in the marketplace, use their positive impacts in their PR to secure market advantage from their efforts and enable consumers to make sustainable choices. Concern in the parliament about the impact of the Green Claims Directive on small businesses was one of the major reasons that it was abandoned.

Green hushing won’t help us travel more responsibly – and neither will certification.

If you are being told that you must certify to protect your business from mis-selling, reflect on the fact that certification has been remarkably unsuccessful across Europe. Recent research by Xavier Font and colleagues reveals that only 9.3% of European hotels in a sample of 82,301 properties on the Booking.com platform were certified in 2024. Certification is highly concentrated among chain-affiliated, large, high-end hotels.

The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECD) will apply across the EU from September 2026 and will address further areas of mis-selling. The changes most likely to impact tourism businesses are:

1. making an environmental claim that is unsubstantiated, or not based on a product’s entire life cycle
2. making an environmental claim without “clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments.”

It is no longer acceptable to claim that a product is green without considering how it is dealt with as waste. Obviously, this would make it impossible to suggest that potable water in a plastic bottle was “green” or that potatoes sold in non-biodegradable bags were “environmentally friendly.”

I am deeply sceptical of the value of certification schemes, most of which are based on tick boxes.  Having a certificate will not provide “clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments.” Nor will a certificate carry any meaning or make any connection with your potential guest. From the beginning of the Responsible Tourism  Movement in the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism  in Destinations, we have recognised the importance of “more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.”

I cannot be sure from a certificate that a hotel composts food waste or pays above the minimum wage. Certification is opaque; the consumer cannot find out what specifically the business does. An issue hammered home to me during the drought in Cape Town in 2018. It was impossible to find out which hotels used the least water per bednight and make an appropriately informed choice about where to stay.

Worse when, as requested, you place your used towels back on the rail to reuse them, the room attendant replaces them with freshly laundered towels you cannot seek redress. The consumer who finds that the hotel fails to deliver on sustainability has little chance of securing redress; the guest cannot find out what the hotel has been certified for and has no contract with the certifying agency from which they might otherwise secure compensation for mis-selling.

Way back in 2017, I posted on the WTM Global Hub Certification: what comes next?

“Certificates are awarded for effort rather than achievement. I am less concerned about how a hotel reduces its energy consumption per bed night than that it reduces the consumption. Wouldn’t it be amazing if certificates were awarded for achieving an acceptable level of water and energy consumption per bed night, for paying wages above minimum wage levels, and meeting a minimum set of labour standards?

Wouldn’t it be even more amazing if hotels and operators published their operational performance against the standard, and the certifiers audited that performance and signed off on the evidence, thereby taking real responsibility for their certificates? Metered electricity consumption would quickly reveal the real performance of the hotel – and whether or not the room key light switches were being overridden. We need to know what the business has achieved that makes them worthy of the certification, and we need to know how they compare with others. Then, when travelling to a water-scarce region, I could choose to stay in one of the hotels with the lowest water usage per bed night or the one with the best employment conditions. Then certification would carry real meaning.

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Responsible Tourism takes a much more transparent approach:

1. Consider what issues arise in or from the impacts of your operations and affect your neighbours.
2. Which of these issues could you address through your business, alone or working with others?
3. Decide what you can afford to do without bankrupting your business and destroying jobs.
4. Tell you suppliers, customers, neighbours and other businesses what you are doing and how?
5. Report your impact using verifiable evidence.

Booking.com has annually reported for some time that large majorities of tourists want to travel more sustainably, but the same consumers say that there are few sustainable options available.

“Our research indicates that as many as 68% of travelers want to travel more sustainably in the coming year. However, the supply of options meeting credible sustainability criteria remains limited, and standards are often inconsistent or difficult to assess. As a result, travelers face uncertainty and lack clear, trusted information to guide their choices.” Booking.com stated in its 2025 Sustainability Report.

It just may be the case that certificates are opaque and fail to meaningfully communicate what responsible travellers are looking for. If you want to see examples of effective Responsible Tourism marketing, take a look at Responsible Travel with user content collateral.

Professor Xavier Font wrote a series of guides for tourism businesses more than a decade ago. The one produced for Failte Ireland using local examples opens with a quote from Simon Ashe of Ballynahinch Castle:” Your customers will only value your sustainability efforts if you make it fun and you communicate it with passion but without making them feel guilty.”

It is important to make your messages meaningful for your target customers – you can’t do everything, as we have seen, you need to choose. Consider your market, amongst other things, when you choose what to take responsibility for.

The Failte Ireland “Green Marketing Toolkit” was published back in 2011, and VisitWales published “Keep it real” in 2012.

In February 2025 Accor, Booking.com and the University of Surrey published cutting edge research on how to engage travellers and “deliver effective and engaging sustainability communications to guests.”

• Highlight sustainability practices – including for less sustainable amenities – and show how guests can easily contribute
• Balance appeals to pleasure and comfort for optimal results
• Empower guests, don’t constrain or dictate to them
• Help guests act as responsibly as they do at home

Follow the link for really helpful guidance.

The most recent research by Booking.com reveals that 85% of travellers say that more sustainable travel is important or very important to them. Older generations demonstrate greater commitment to specific, more sustainable behaviours than their younger counterparts. Less than half (47%) of the Boomer survey respondents (61+) say they want to travel more sustainably in the coming 12 months, compared to 60% of Gen Xers (45-60), 71% of Millennials (29-44) and 75% of Gen Z (18-28). Research shows that perhaps their actions speak louder than words.

• Of those who intend to travel more sustainably over the next year, two thirds of Boomers (67%) say they will reduce general waste when travelling compared to 56% of Gen X, 52% of Millennials and less than half of Gen Z (48%).
• 60% of Boomers intend to reduce energy consumption (such as turning off air conditioning and lights in their room when they aren’t there), compared to 51% of Gen X, 46% of Millennials and 42% of Gen Z.
• 59% of Boomers say they will shop more at local, independent stores on their trips compared to 50% of Gen X, 44% of Millennials, and 42% of Gen Z.
• And perhaps, unsurprisingly, older generations were much more likely to report plans to travel outside of peak season: Boomers (63%), Gen X (48%), Millennials (41%) and Gen Z (36%).

The market is increasingly complex, requiring businesses to carefully evaluate what truly matters to their clients and target audiences. Success depends on identifying and building meaningful connections that drive sustainable growth and long-term value.

L’article Cheaper and smarter ways to prevent mis-selling without certification est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Under the leadership of John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, the government’s renewed focus on building a new national airline and attracting majority private investment deserves recognition. It shows that Ghana is once again viewing aviation not only as transport, but as a tool for national development.

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Recent reports indicate that Ghana is seeking investors and strategic partners to help establish a new national airline. This is a timely and encouraging step. For a country with Ghana’s cultural depth, coastal assets, diaspora strength, business potential, and regional influence, air connectivity is not a secondary issue. It is the foundation of tourism growth.

In tourism, mobility is not just a technical detail. It is the first layer of infrastructure.

A destination may offer hotels, heritage, beaches, events, investment opportunities, and a strong national brand. But without direct access, reliable air routes, and a competitive aviation ecosystem, it cannot fully convert its potential into economic value. Tourism begins with the ability to arrive.

This is why Ghana’s renewed airline vision should be seen as a national development strategy, not merely an aviation project.

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Nearly a decade ago, we highlighted the importance of this issue. At the time, we emphasised that Ghana needed to strengthen its aviation capacity, expand international connectivity, and position itself as a regional hub for tourism, investment, and mobility. The idea was simple but strategic: if Ghana wants to become a stronger tourism economy, it must first become more accessible to the world.

Unfortunately, the political leadership of that period did not take sufficient ownership of this vision, and the opportunity remained unrealised.

Today, however, President John Dramani Mahama’s administration appears to be reopening this strategic chapter with a more investment-oriented and pragmatic approach. The decision to seek private-sector participation and strategic investors is particularly important. In the modern aviation economy, national airlines cannot be built on political ambition alone. They require capital discipline, experienced operators, commercial logic, route strategy, brand positioning, and strong public-private cooperation.

This is where Ghana has a real opportunity.

A new national carrier, if structured correctly, could support not only inbound tourism but also business travel, investment flows, regional trade, diaspora engagement, MICE tourism, and Ghana’s broader international visibility. It could connect Accra more effectively with key African capitals, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, while strengthening Ghana’s role as a gateway to West Africa.

Ghana takes steps toward reviving a national airline as Ambassador Victor Emmanuel Smith engages Boeing in Seattle on a strategic partnership. pic.twitter.com/PQ0am4iS28

— CDR AFRICA (@cdrafrica) April 30, 2026

For tourism, this would be transformative.

Ghana has already made meaningful progress in positioning itself as a destination with cultural identity, heritage value, and international relevance. But the next stage of growth requires stronger air access. Tourism promotion without mobility is incomplete. Investment promotion without connectivity is limited. Destination branding without aviation capacity is not enough.

The government of President John Dramani Mahama deserves credit for reopening this strategic discussion and inviting potential partners into the process. This is the right direction. It signals seriousness, openness to private investment, and an understanding that tourism infrastructure must include aviation as a central pillar.

As the World Tourism Forum Institute, we strongly welcome this direction.

We stand ready to support Ghana by providing strategic leads, introducing relevant investors, facilitating international tourism and aviation dialogue, and helping position the country’s renewed aviation vision before the global tourism and investment community. Our role has always been to connect governments, investors, tourism leaders, and strategic institutions around projects that can create long-term national value.

@amberstravels Paradise found in Ghana #fyp #ghana #ghanatiktok #vacationmode #wintersun #oceanlife #watersoblue #2024travelbucketlist #luxurytravel #traveldestinations #ghanatiktok ♬ Praise Jah In The Moonlight – YG Marley

Ghana’s airline ambition is exactly such a project.

This is not only about launching aircraft under a national flag. It is about creating a platform for economic movement. It is about making Ghana easier to reach, easier to invest in, and easier to promote as a serious tourism and business destination.

Tourism is not only about hotels, beaches, or campaigns. It is about transportation, infrastructure, trust, investment, and vision. Ghana has the opportunity to combine all these elements into a new growth story.

If the country builds the right aviation model, commercially sound, privately supported, internationally connected, and strategically aligned with tourism, Ghana can become one of Africa’s most important tourism and mobility hubs.

The opportunity is clear. The timing is right. And the leadership shown by President John Dramani Mahama’s government deserves recognition.

For Ghana, aviation can become more than transport. It can become the engine of a new tourism economy.

L’article Ghana’s new aviation ambition could become a turning point for African tourism est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

For decades, Nepal has occupied a rare place in the global imagination. It is a country synonymous with Mount Everest, spiritual depth, Himalayan majesty, and a sense of wonder that few destinations can replicate. But in a global tourism economy now shaped as much by long term value as by natural appeal, Nepal deserves to be viewed through a far more serious lens: not simply as an extraordinary place to visit, but as one of Asia’s most intriguing tourism investment frontiers.

What gives Nepal this edge is not only its iconic geography. It is the country’s unusual ability to combine adventure, spirituality, culture, heritage, wildlife and community based hospitality within a single national identity. Very few destinations can credibly serve so many travel motivations at once. Nepal can appeal to the trekker, the pilgrim, the wellness traveller, the cultural explorer and the investor looking beyond saturated tourism markets. That breadth is not just a branding advantage. It is an economic one.

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Lumbini and Mount Everest alone would already give Nepal a powerful position in world tourism. One is among the most spiritually significant places on earth, recognised as the birthplace of Lord Buddha. The other remains the ultimate global symbol of exploration, endurance and human ambition. Together, they form a rare duality: a destination grounded both in transcendence and aspiration. That kind of symbolism matters in tourism because the strongest destinations do not merely attract travellers. They command emotional meaning.

Yet Nepal’s real depth goes beyond landmarks. Nepal Tourism Board describes the country as home to about 101 ethnic groups speaking over 92 languages, an extraordinary degree of diversity for a nation of its size. This is one of Nepal’s most underappreciated tourism assets. Diversity here is not a slogan; it is embedded in festivals, architecture, cuisine, ritual life, crafts, music and local hospitality traditions. For modern tourism, that creates something immensely valuable: authenticity with layers.

Its geography adds another strategic dimension. Within a relatively compact national footprint, Nepal stretches from lowland environments to some of the most dramatic alpine terrain in the world. This physical range helps explain why Nepal can support such a wide tourism spectrum, from nature and wildlife to trekking, pilgrimage and mountain wellness. In an age when travellers increasingly seek multidimensional experiences rather than single purpose holidays, Nepal’s geographic diversity becomes a business advantage as much as a scenic one.

@breterlop One of those places I never stop thinking about From trekking in the Himalayas to completing a silent retreat, seeing wild rhinos on a walking safari, & exploring Kathmandu- Nepal was one for the books • #travel #traveltok #traveltiktok #nepal #nepalitiktok #nepaltravel #trek #mardihimaltrek #himalayas #annapurna #silentretreat #backpacking #solotravel #solofemaletravel ♬ original sound –

Crucially, momentum is no longer hypothetical. Nepal Tourism Board reported that April 2025 was the strongest April on record for international arrivals, with 116,490 visitors, while the first four months of 2025 brought total arrivals to 415,048. Just as notably, April 2025 surpassed the pre-pandemic April 2019 benchmark. These figures suggest that Nepal is no longer simply recovering. It is reasserting itself.

That matters because investment stories become compelling when narrative meets timing. Nepal already possesses global recognition, emotional brand equity and clear differentiation. What it still has, and what many mature destinations no longer do, is room to build. In much of the world, premium tourism investment now means entering crowded, expensive, highly competitive markets. Nepal offers a rarer proposition: global fascination paired with underdeveloped upside.

Its medium term direction reinforces that promise. Public facing sources point not to a formal “Tourism 2040” doctrine, but to the Nepal Tourism Decade 2023–2032 vision, under which the country aims to attract 3.5 million annual visitors by 2032. That target is significant not because it signals scale alone, but because it reflects intent. Nepal is positioning tourism not as a passive byproduct of beauty, but as a structured national growth engine. For investors, 2040 is therefore best seen not as an official policy label, but as a strategic horizon built on the country’s current trajectory.

For foreign investors, the attraction is clear. Investment Board Nepal explicitly identifies tourism as a priority opportunity area, particularly across adventure, cultural, religious and MICE tourism. It also stresses the need for private sector participation in closing infrastructure and service gaps. That is the language investors pay attention to. It signals that Nepal’s next tourism chapter will not be built by promotion alone. It will be built through capital, design, execution and confidence.

This is where the real opportunity lies. Nepal is not simply looking for more visitors. It is implicitly making the case for better products, stronger infrastructure and higher value experiences. Premium hospitality, wellness and spiritual tourism concepts, pilgrimage linked infrastructure, destination mobility, resort led development and upgraded visitor services all sit naturally within that opportunity set. That is an inference from official priorities rather than a quoted government checklist, but it is a commercially logical reading of where value can be created.

The institutional story also matters. Nepal’s Department of Industries states that foreign investment is governed by FITTA 2019 and the Industrial Enterprises Act 2020, while Investment Board Nepal presents itself as a high-level body chaired by the prime minister and tasked with creating an investment-friendly environment. No emerging market is without friction, of course. But serious investors are more likely to engage when opportunity is anchored in institutional architecture rather than promotional rhetoric alone. Nepal appears increasingly aware of that distinction.

Political leadership may add further momentum. Nepal’s current prime minister, Balendra Shah, took office on 27 March 2026, amid a broader atmosphere of reform expectations and generational change. It would be too early to claim that he has already articulated a fully developed tourism doctrine. But youth in leadership can matter, particularly in emerging economies where symbolism and speed often move together. A younger prime minister can project dynamism, urgency and stronger alignment with the aspirations of a rising generation. If that energy is matched by policy execution, Nepal’s tourism and investment narrative could gain an added layer of confidence and credibility.

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That reformist tone is already visible in tourism sector messaging. On 6 April 2026, Nepal Tourism Board reported Tourism Minister Khadak Raj Paudel calling for a new working style centred on quality, innovation, long term planning and results oriented strategy. These are not abstract buzzwords. They are signals that Nepal understands an increasingly competitive truth: tourism success today cannot rest on image alone. It must be supported by delivery.

This is why Nepal now deserves more serious attention from the global investment community. It is globally recognised, culturally layered, emotionally resonant and institutionally engaged, yet still early enough for investors to help shape the market. That combination is rare. In many destinations, the brand is strong but the upside is already priced in. In Nepal, the brand is global, but the investment story is still being written.

The most compelling tourism opportunities of the next decade may not come from places the world has overlooked. They may come from places the world has admired for years, but not yet fully built around. Nepal fits that description perfectly. Its next great ascent may not be on its mountains alone, but in its ability to transform extraordinary identity into investable scale.

L’article Nepal’s next ascent lies in tourism investment, not just its peaks est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Certification has been remarkably unsuccessful across Europe. Recent research by Xavier Font and colleagues reveals that only 9.3% of European hotels in a sample of 82,301 properties were certified in 2024, according to the Booking.com platform. Certification is highly concentrated among chain-affiliated, large, high-end hotels.

There is a case for certification as a basic assurance for businesses concerned about their supply chains, particularly tour operators. However, businesses in destinations remain highly vulnerable to pressure from source markets demanding certification.

A second issue is that certification does not provide verification for specific claims.

Working with Glynn O’Leary, a professionally trained corporate accountant, ICRT.global has developed a method enabling businesses to report and differentiate themselves in the marketplace based on the local economic benefits they generate through sourcing and payroll. They can also report on their national and local tax contributions. Verification can then be provided by their accountants at a marginal additional cost.

Most accommodation providers already pay for water, electricity, and fuel for vehicles and generators. Data on consumption per bed night could therefore be reported, with accountants independently verifying the claims made by businesses.

Using accountant-audited accounts to report local spend, emissions, and water consumption is currently a work in progress, with collaborations including easyJet holidays and Transfrontier Parks Destinations.

I will be speaking virtually at the third Eswatini Responsible Tourism Conference on Creating Shared Value. The event will bring together policymakers, tourism operators, academics, and community leaders to explore practical strategies for strengthening responsible tourism and ensuring that tourism development benefits local communities, protects the environment, and celebrates Eswatini’s rich cultural heritage.

Date: Tuesday, 28 April
Location: Piggs Peak Hotel, King Mswati III Highway, Eswatini. Register here to attend either in person or virtually.

L’article Out of Africa: verification without certification est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

What the Kingdom has built under Vision 2030 is not a conventional tourism expansion, nor a promotional exercise dressed in the language of reform. It is something far more consequential: the deliberate construction of a new economic pillar, designed to generate growth, influence, confidence and global relevance at scale.

That distinction matters. Many countries aspire to become tourism powers. Saudi Arabia has chosen to become something more ambitious — a nation that uses tourism as a strategic instrument of transformation.

And the numbers now speak with unusual authority. Saudi Arabia surpassed its original target of 100 million annual tourists seven years ahead of schedule. In 2024 alone, the Kingdom recorded approximately 116 million domestic and inbound tourists, a 6% increase over the previous year, while total tourism spending reached SAR 284 billion. Those figures do not merely suggest momentum. They confirm structural arrival.  

This is why Saudi tourism deserves to be understood not as a sectoral success, but as a national masterstroke.

At the center of that masterstroke stands Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose leadership has given Saudi Arabia one of the clearest transformation narratives of the modern era. Vision 2030 did not simply identify tourism as a growth opportunity. It elevated tourism into a core instrument of national redesign — economically, institutionally and internationally.

That is what visionary leadership looks like in practice: not the announcement of ambition, but the engineering of alignment.

In most countries, tourism evolves gradually, often in fragments. A hotel strategy emerges here, an aviation plan there, a cultural initiative somewhere else. Saudi Arabia has taken a different route. It has aligned tourism with infrastructure, sovereign capital, mobility, investment, quality of life, heritage, entertainment, pilgrimage and destination development within a single strategic architecture. The result is not just growth. It is coherence.

And in economics, coherence is power.

The Kingdom’s National Tourism Strategy makes that power legible. Saudi Arabia is targeting tourism to contribute more than 10% of GDP and create up to 1.6 million jobs by 2030. These are not decorative targets. They indicate that tourism is being treated as a serious engine of national productivity, employment and non-oil expansion. Few countries in the world have positioned tourism with this degree of institutional seriousness.  

The most decisive validation of this approach arrived on 15 April 2026, when the Public Investment Fund Board, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, approved PIF’s 2026–2030 strategy. The language of that strategy is telling. Saudi Arabia is moving from the Growth phase of 2021–2025 into what it defines as a Value Realization phase. That is more than a policy update. It is a declaration of maturity. Scale, in other words, is no longer enough. Performance, ecosystem depth and long-term value now define the next chapter.  

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This matters enormously for tourism.

Under the new strategy, PIF organizes its investments through Vision, Strategic and Financial portfolios, with the Vision Portfolio anchored around six competitive domestic ecosystems. Tourism, travel and entertainment is explicitly named as one of them. That single fact says almost everything the market needs to know. Tourism is not adjacent to Saudi Arabia’s future. It is one of the systems through which the future is being built.  

And because this is Saudi Arabia, that strategic designation is backed by financial force.

PIF’s assets under management have risen from $150 billion in 2015 to more than $900 billion. Between 2021 and 2025, the fund invested over $199 billion into new Saudi projects, while contributing more than $243 billion to real non-oil GDP between 2021 and 2024, equivalent to roughly 10% of the Kingdom’s total. In that context, tourism’s formal place inside the value-realization architecture is not symbolic praise. It is a capital-backed priority.  

This is where many outside observers still underestimate Saudi Arabia.

They see destinations, projects, and headlines. What they should be seeing is operating logic.

Saudi Arabia is not simply building hotels, resorts, or attractions. It is building an interconnected visitor economy in which access, spending, infrastructure, experience, and investor confidence reinforce one another. The Kingdom’s expansion of e-visa access to 66 countries is one example. On the surface, it is an administrative reform. In strategic terms, it is friction removal — a critical ingredient in tourism competitiveness.  

The global performance indicators reinforce the point. Saudi Arabia ranked third worldwide in the growth rate of international tourist arrivals in the first eight to nine months of 2024 versus 2019, exceeding 61%. That is not the profile of a market simply participating in recovery. It is the profile of a market outperforming the field.  

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Yet the Kingdom’s greatest advantage may not be its speed, its capital, or even its scale. It may be the consistency of intent behind all three.

For investors, operators, and international stakeholders, continuity is one of the rarest and most valuable assets in any transformation story. Saudi Arabia today offers something that global capital notices immediately: a clear national direction, reinforced by sovereign capability and sustained by leadership conviction. That combination reduces ambiguity. And when ambiguity declines, confidence compounds.

This is why Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role is so central to the tourism story. His significance is not merely that he endorsed tourism. It is that he repositioned it. He understood earlier than most that tourism could become more than a leisure industry; it could become a platform for economic diversification, global rebranding and long-horizon value creation. Under his leadership, tourism has become one of the clearest expressions of Saudi Arabia’s confidence in its own next chapter.

That is what gives the Saudi model its unusual prestige.

It is modern without being detached from identity. It is globally ambitious without appearing imitative. It is investment-led, yet strategically national in character. Religious tourism remains foundational, but the Kingdom is also broadening its proposition across culture, entertainment, coastal development, urban lifestyle, sports, and premium hospitality. This is not diversification for its own sake. It is portfolio thinking applied to destination-building.

And the next milestone is already in view. Vision 2030 communications now point to an ambition of more than 150 million visitors by 2030. If the present trajectory continues, Saudi Arabia will not simply join the front rank of global tourism markets. It will become one of the clearest modern case studies of how national vision, sovereign capital, and disciplined execution can transform tourism into a pillar of economic statecraft.  

For the world of travel, investment, and destination strategy, the message is now unmistakable.

Saudi Arabia is no longer a market to watch from a distance. It is a market being built with strategic precision, financial depth, and historic confidence. And with tourism now formally embedded within PIF’s value-realization framework, the Kingdom has moved beyond signalling ambition. It is institutionalizing it.

That is why Saudi tourism matters.

Not because it is growing fast.
Not because it is investing heavily.
Not because it is attracting attention.

It matters because Saudi Arabia has understood something many nations still have not: tourism, when led with vision and executed with discipline, is not merely an industry.

It is a statement of national intent.

L’article Saudi Arabia’s tourism ambition is a calculated global play est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The dominant theories and models of economics used by academics, policy makers, regulators, and businesses dismiss greenhouse gas emissions as mere externalities; they are not included in the cost side of calculations. These pollution costs, like climate change, impose very substantial costs on others, but the polluter does not bear the cost; others do.

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I now vaguely recall the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) first introduced in 1972 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where the polluter was kept responsible for the pollution. It was reaffirmed globally in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Aviation is just one of the industries where the polluter does not pay.

Aviation fuel production, drilling, refining, and delivery are not without externality costs. However, the real environmental damage is caused by the burning of the fuel. Bristol-based Firefly Green Fuels, about its company’s plans to turn sewage into sustainable aviation fuel.

Taking sewage sludge from water utilities, Firefly puts it into a high-pressure reactor to separate it into two useful materials: Biochar, a fertiliser for the agriculture industry, and bio-crude, which can be refined into jet fuel.

 “Firefly’s route to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is unique in that it uses a completely biogenic and otherwise problematic material as a feedstock – sewage,” James Hygate, Firefly Green Fuels CEO, said. “This cheap and abundant feedstock will never run out and the SAF we can produce with it is almost identical to fossil jet fuel.”

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The SAF it produces will then be “almost identical to fossil jet fuel,” burnt in the same jet engines it will produce very similar emissions. Some biofuels do burn without greenhouse gas emissions, but those based on sewage will not reduce emissions – and emissions are the issue.

Peer reviewed research published by Cambridge University engineers reveals that reducing contrails could reduce aviation’s global warming impact by nearly half. “aviation contributes around 2–3% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but its total climate impact is larger because of non-CO₂ effects such as contrails. Interest in contrail avoidance has grown rapidly in recent years as governments and airlines search for ways to reduce aviation’s climate impact while the sector transitions to lower-carbon fuels.”

Lead author Dr Jessie Smith, from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering says “Contrail avoidance can often be as simple as changing the flight paths, Often it’s even simpler than that – just moving slightly to a higher or lower altitude to avoid the areas of the atmosphere where contrails form.”

L’article Aviation: inconvenient truths est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Unseen Tours, founded in 2010, grew out of The Sock Mob, a volunteer initiative that used a simple gesture, offering warm socks, to engage with rough sleepers and vulnerable individuals across London. What began as an act of human connection evolved into something more ambitious: creating meaningful encounters between people who might otherwise never meet.

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The concept is simple, but powerful. Individuals with lived experience of homelessness or insecure housing are supported to develop and lead guided tours through neighbourhoods they know intimately. These are not conventional walks. They are narratives shaped by memory, resilience, and perspective.

Since its inception, Unseen Tours has worked with more than 28 guides across eight areas of London. Each year, the organisation delivers over 450 tours, welcoming more than 6,500 participants. But the impact cannot be measured in numbers alone.

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For the guides, the initiative provides paid work, renewed confidence, opportunities to develop skills, and a pathway towards social inclusion. More importantly, it offers something often denied to those on the margins: a platform to be heard. They are not subjects of observation, but storytellers and teachers.

For visitors, the experience is equally transformative. It challenges perceptions and invites reflection. The homeless, like people with disabilities, are often viewed through labels that obscure their humanity. Yet they are, simply, people like us, navigating different circumstances.

This model is not unique to London. Around the world, similar initiatives have emerged, offering travellers the chance to engage with places through the eyes of those who live at the edges of society. Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in experiences that move beyond traditional tourism, towards encounters that are more authentic, more uncomfortable, and ultimately more meaningful.

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Travel, at its best, is about encountering difference. It is about understanding “the other”, if only briefly. Yet this raises important ethical questions. Such encounters can risk becoming voyeuristic or exploitative, particularly when they involve poverty or marginalisation.

So-called slum tourism illustrates this tension. For many, the idea of visiting deprived neighbourhoods as a tourist activity feels deeply uncomfortable. The imbalance is clear: visitors arrive with time, money, and mobility, while those they observe often lack all three.

And yet, when done responsibly, with agency and benefit for those involved, these encounters can create genuine value. They can foster understanding, challenge stereotypes, and provide economic opportunities for communities that are too often excluded from tourism’s benefits.

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The question, then, is not whether such experiences should exist, but how they are designed, who controls the narrative, and who ultimately benefits.

For those interested in this evolving space, I maintain a list of organisations, businesses, charities, and NGOs that enable these kinds of encounters. If you are aware of initiatives that should be included, I would welcome hearing from you.

Tourism has the potential to connect, to humanise, and to transform. The challenge is ensuring that it does so with dignity, respect, and fairness for all involved.

L’article See London differently through unseen voices est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

In fact, once the conflict de escalates, the UAE may not simply recover. It may consolidate its position as the region’s undisputed tourism powerhouse. That is not a romantic assumption. It is a structural one.

A structural advantage in times of crisis

The countries that emerge strongest after geopolitical shocks are usually not those untouched by disruption, but those with the deepest infrastructure, the strongest institutional credibility and the clearest global market positioning. On all three fronts, the UAE stands apart. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are no longer competing merely as regional destinations; they are operating as global platforms for tourism, aviation, investment, hospitality and events.

When uncertainty reshapes traveller behaviour, demand typically flows towards destinations that feel safest, most organised and most reliable. In the post-conflict phase, international travellers, airlines, investors and event organisers are unlikely to reward ambiguity. They will reward continuity. The UAE has spent years building exactly that brand.

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A global tourism ecosystem

Dubai, in particular, has become more than a leisure city. It is a logistics hub, a premium stopover market, a global retail destination, a cruise gateway and one of the world’s most recognisable tourism brands. Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, has matured into a complementary force, combining culture, luxury, sports, entertainment and institutional tourism strategy under a more diversified visitor economy. Together, they create a tourism ecosystem few regional competitors can match. This is why the UAE’s post-war advantage could become more pronounced, not less.

Hamdan bin Mohammed announces the citywide introduction of contactless hotel check-in technology. pic.twitter.com/hKC10Gxgn0

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) December 9, 2025

Trust as a competitive currency

In moments of regional instability, perception becomes currency. Travellers who may once have considered several Middle Eastern destinations often narrow their choices quickly. Airlines do the same. So do conference organisers, luxury tour operators and global hospitality investors. In that environment, the UAE benefits from a powerful competitive edge: it is already familiar, already connected and already trusted by international markets. That trust is one of the most undervalued assets in tourism economics.

A destination can build hotels, airports and attractions. Building confidence is far harder. The UAE has done both. Its tourism model is supported by world-class aviation, streamlined visitor services, high-capacity accommodation, diversified source markets and a government apparatus that understands the strategic value of tourism not as a side industry, but as a pillar of national competitiveness. That last point is essential.

Tourism as an integrated economic system

For the UAE, tourism has never been treated as seasonal demand generation alone. It has been positioned as part of a larger economic architecture tied to trade, aviation, real estate, global events, investment promotion and soft power. This integrated model gives the country unusual resilience. When one segment slows, others continue to support momentum. Business travel feeds hotels. Airlines feed stopovers. Events feed restaurants, retail and premium transport. Tourism in the UAE is not a silo; it is an ecosystem.

pic.twitter.com/X6coHbnYGk

— MoFA وزارة الخارجية (@mofauae) March 17, 2026

Ecosystems recover faster than isolated sectors

There is also a market share story embedded in this crisis. Post-war recovery across the Middle East is unlikely to be even. Some destinations may take longer to restore traveller confidence. Others may face slower airline normalisation or weaker international messaging. The UAE does not need every market in the region to recover at the same speed in order to win. It simply needs to recover faster than the alternatives.

That is a realistic scenario.

If the conflict subsides, Dubai and Abu Dhabi could capture redirected leisure demand, larger stopover volumes, premium travel seeking reassurance and a greater share of MICE and corporate mobility flows. Investors, too, may view the UAE even more favourably as a stable operating base in a region where stability itself has become a premium asset. In other words, a crisis may strengthen the UAE’s relative advantage.

Resilience in the face of disruption

This does not mean the country is immune to near-term pain. Aviation disruption, higher insurance costs, volatile fuel prices and shifts in booking sentiment are real pressures. No serious analysis should dismiss them. But long-term winners in tourism are often defined less by whether they face shocks and more by how convincingly they absorb them. 

The UAE has repeatedly shown an ability to do exactly that. Its brand has been built not only on luxury and spectacle, but also on predictability, speed and execution. In a post-war environment, those qualities will matter more than ever. Travellers will place greater value on seamless airports, dependable airlines, strong safety perception, digital convenience and destinations that signal normality from the moment they land. That is where the UAE’s true competitive power lies.

Dubai ranks first regionally and sixth globally in the Smart City Index 2026, issued by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). pic.twitter.com/1RS4jcyK0x

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) April 1, 2026

A shift towards global dominance

The bigger story, then, is not whether UAE tourism can rebound after the Iran-Israel-US war. It is whether the crisis will ultimately accelerate a trend already underway: the UAE’s rise from a leading regional tourism market to an even more dominant global travel and mobility hub.

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) awards the contract for Phase I of Dubai Walk Master Plan in Al Ras. The phase covers the development of the Historic Al Ras Walkway, comprising 12 km of walkways and 5 km of cycling tracks, alongside the rehabilitation of 10 artistic… pic.twitter.com/Qdug4XKgs1

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) March 22, 2026

That possibility should not be underestimated

Because when the region reopens psychologically, not just operationally, the destinations best positioned to win will be those that represent certainty in an uncertain geography. The UAE has spent years investing in that identity. And once the war ends, that investment may pay off at an even higher level.

L’article Why UAE tourism may emerge even stronger after the Iran-Israel-US war est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The differently abled are very like you and me; they are you and me with “disabilities” which make them or us differently abled. In the Responsible Tourism Awards, we have not looked specifically at holidays for the differently abled for a while; we will in 2027.

Responsible Travel commissioned YouGov to survey accessible adventure travel. The survey revealed that accessibility is a mainstream, not niche, part of travel. Two in five UK adults – 41% – now travel with accessibility in mind, including those who regularly travel with or care for someone with access needs. There’s more than a moral and social responsibility to making travel more accessible – it’s a business imperative. And it benefits everyone. The survey shows that after cost, it is confidence, not a lack of interest, that is holding back millions of people who travel due to access or health considerations. Their accessible holidays survey report is here. It’s the first of an annual study they will conduct to compare the travel experiences of people with, and without, health and accessibility needs.

Campo and Parque de Sonhos hotel have shown that people with disabilities can take part in nearly all activities typically offered to able-bodied visitors at adventure resorts. Awarded Gold at the 2014 Responsible Tourism Awards, Campo and Parque dos Sonhos demonstrate what is possible when accessibility is placed at the heart of an activity-based resort. By prioritising inclusive design and a mindset that values ability over limitation, the team creates an environment where everyone can participate and enjoy shared experiences.

As José Fernandes, who developed the adventure park for all, explains, “A 2-year-old child descended the shorter Tyrolese in total safety, while an 84-year-old lady broke the age record in the 1-km long Tyrolese”. The Park of Dreams attracts novices, adventure sports enthusiasts who want to try several experiences in one day, school groups, corporate team building groups, and those who want to make commercials. Being accessible for all makes commercial sense.

I asked José why he had pushed the boundaries of what is possible for people with disabilities so far. It was, he said, because we all have disabilities in our lives, we all start life being pushed, in a pram or pushchair, and most of us will live with or develop disabilities. Pushchairs and wheelchairs need the same ramps.

The resort offers a wide range of activities, including five zip lines, a canopy walkway, rappelling, climbing, a rope swing, caving, trekking, fishing, cycling with 10 types of accessible bikes, river tubing, horse riding, and swimming in natural pools and beneath waterfalls. Visitors can come for the day or stay for several days or weeks in fully accessible accommodation. People with disabilities are able to take part in all activities at no extra charge.

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This makes commercial sense

“Our non-disabled clients also create a great admiration and loyalty to the hotel just by knowing how we go the extra mile for the disabled and people with reduced mobility. Furthermore, the non-disabled visitors also benefit from the adaptation for all types of disabilities. For example, the built-in kennels for guide dogs (for blind people) at the accommodations encouraged families who own a pet to stay at the hotel. All the equipment (light switches, towel hanger, telescopic mirror, etc) at an accessible height for wheelchairs also served to children who could become more autonomous, which caused them to love the place and encouraged their parents to return to the location. Ramps were also vital for parents with strollers, and we also began to receive groups of elderly people during the weekdays to enjoy the comfort and security of accessibility,” José explained.

“The biggest challenge of all was to overcome the prejudice that most people had about having ‘crippled’ people involved anyhow in any business. From our team to our clients, and even from business partners and competitors, everyone doubted accessibility could bring sustainable growth to the business,” he added.

When I visited, I watched an 86-year-old lady use the vest for a paraplegic or quadriplegic to be able to do rafting and zip lining. Humbled, I could not summon up the courage to do as she had done.

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Differently Abled Indians

There has been a great deal of progress in India, where the language of the differently abled is increasingly used and provision for those with disabilities is being extended.

Inclusivity in tourism applies to both consumers, the tourist, and those working in the industry. Lemon Tree Hotels won Gold and were also the Overall Winners in the 2016 Responsible Tourism Awards.

Lemon Tree Hotels in India is by no means a niche operator; Lemon Tree has defined mainstreaming “Opportunity Deprived Indians” (ODIs) into its workforce as a core goal. ODIs include those who are speech and hearing impaired, orthopedically handicapped, acid survivors, visually impaired, or with low vision, Down syndrome, or autism.

Their barrier-free employment strategy is at the heart of their CSR programme, but not of their marketing strategy.  Patu Keswani, Chairman & Managing Director of Lemon Tree Hotels, challenged his managers to find ways to employ the differently-abled and disadvantaged Indians because  “the brand should stand for more than ‘just profit’.” Lemon Tree is a large, successful and growing company encompassing several brands, 8,000 rooms in  91 hotels across 49 destinations, and it is committed to barrier-free employment.

The commitment to employing ODIs, Opportunity Deprived Indians, is clearly stated on the website – if you look for it, you have to hunt for it.

“We believe that persons with disabilities (which can be physical, social or economic disabilities leading to an opportunity deprivation) must be provided the same opportunities as others to realize their full potential and live with dignity. By creating a supportive environment in the organization that allows them to deliver their best, we are able to play a part, however small, in social inclusiveness, opportunity/livelihood creation and therefore nation-building.”

Watch the video here, Aradhana explains how they have transformed employment opportunities at Lemon Tree Hotels

Report by Skyscanner, Inclusive Travel: What Travellers with Disabilities Need to Know About Their Rights, breaks down the current landscape of accessible travel in Europe; dives into the rights of disabled travellers spanning different areas such as mobility, service animals, and travel insurance; and offers practical advice for accessible holidays.

L’article All-inclusive holidays: accessible tourism made inclusive for all est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The presentation I prepared for the launch event of John-Likita’s work is available on YouTube.

The Responsible Tourism movement arose towards the end of the last century as people became increasingly concerned about the parroting of sustainability whilst taking no discernible actions to achieve it. Sustainability still lacks a substantive definition against which delivery can be judged.

The UK volunteering charity VSO surveyed its volunteers around the world about the key issues facing the communities they worked in. Tourism came out top; a year or two later, it would have been HIV AIDS. I was invited to take part in their campaign for ethical tourism and funded to undertake some research with AITO members into how viable this approach is. Working with Richard Hearn, founder and then MD of Inntravel, we surveyed the membership and their views on adopting an ethical policy commitment.

We were surprised, perhaps more accurately amazed, by the volume, detail, and quality of the responses we received telling us about what AITO members were doing in the destination in 1999. We asked AITO members the open question: “What motivates you, or might motivate you, to follow an ethical trading policy?” The answers were then clustered, each reply being placed in only one cluster according to the balance of their response.

Ethical Motivations reported by AITO Members in Summer 1999:

It is striking that none of the individual owners or managers surveyed identified a commercial or market advantage. There is arguably an enlightened self-interest in the benefits of partnership and enhancing supplier and staff loyalty. However, the AITO owners and managers reported to their trade association that their motivation was largely personal or ethical (36%). One in six was concerned for the quality of the destination and the product. One in 14 saw it as part of their approach to doing business based on partnership and loyalty to suppliers and staff. Asked separately about how they characterised their supply chain, two-thirds saw their suppliers as like-minded partners, working with common goals.

Thirty-three members, about a fifth of the membership, reported that they were working with or investing in local projects intended to improve the situation of local people, to contribute to conservation or improve the local environment. One in three companies was making charitable donations to destinations. Half of respondents reported that they were concerned about the impact of tourism at locations featured in their brochures, and one in five reported concern about the impacts of their own company in destinations.

The final question canvassed their view on whether AITO members should share a stated commitment to ethical tour operations: 52% felt that they should, 20% sat on the fence, and 27% said that they should not. The AITO sub-committee concluded that the survey revealed “unexpectedly extensive good practice in responsible tourism”, that members operating within Europe as well as further afield were engaged, and that individual AITO members were making a significant difference.

AITO’s Responsible Tourism Committee. Chaired by Richard Hearn,  concluded that by “working together as AITO we can have a bigger impact, whether in initiatives which involve the whole membership or through members who share a common approach or a common destination working together to make change.”  After that survey, the AITO Responsible Tourism Committee grew from three member companies to seven.   However, it felt unable to commit to the word ethical, which it thought “carried with it unacceptable implications and inferences,”  and its recommendation to adopt a set of advisory rather than prescriptive guidelines was agreed in May 2000.

South Africa was the first country explicitly to commit to Responsible Tourism in its national policies. When the African National Congress took power in South Africa in 1994, it had not developed a tourism strategy. Under apartheid, the industry had been very limited due to anti-apartheid boycotts and the security situation. It was out of the democratisation of South Africa and the need to harness tourism for economic and social development in the new South Africa that the concept of Responsible Tourism was first used in a national government policy.

The 1996 White Paper was conventionally titled: The Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa. However, the ANC’s policy on tourism was radical in both the South African and international context. Responsible Tourism was in the graphics on the cover of the White Paper and used throughout. Responsible Tourism was defined in the White Paper as:

“…tourism that promotes responsibility to the environment through its sustainable use; responsibility to involve local communities in the tourism industry; responsibility for the safety and security of visitors and responsible government, employees, employers, unions and local communities.”

The new government recognised the breadth of opportunities which tourism could offer the country and in particular the informal sector:

“The tourism industry accommodates a thriving and dynamic informal sector – from craft and fruit vendors to beach vendors, chair rentals, and others. … there are many business opportunities to involve previously neglected groups in the tourism business: entertainment, laundry and transportation services, craft rental; arts, craft and curios sales; tour guides and walking tours of places of interest; teaching of African languages and customs to interested visitors; restaurants emphasising local cuisine; guest houses; beach manicures and pedicures; and much more.”

Tourism was identified as a missed opportunity. There had been “limited integration of local communities and neglected groups into tourism”,  which presented a significant opportunity for South Africa to create employment, draw on a multiplicity of skills, create entrepreneurial opportunities, bring development to rural areas and generate foreign-exchange earnings. Tourism was seen as a way of establishing a taste, and therefore an export market, for South African products such as wine. The paper also stated, “all the final touches (value) have to be added in South Africa… the value added in final stages of production is created in South Africa.” This was the “final good”: one of the advantages of tourism is the opportunity to capture the final retail value of the product in the country.

In 2002, these two strands of work came together and resulted in the Cape Town Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations held as an official side event to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The conference produced the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations, the founding document of the Responsible Tourism Movement.

L’article The Origins of Responsible Tourism: Ethics, AITO & South Africa est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.