The Normandy example was highly extractive, the economic value stripped out to UK bank accounts. The Ireland example was quite the opposite, a form of community-based tourism with the economic value captured locally. In neither case did this form of tourism accommodation have a big impact on property prices and rental values. This all changed with the internet.

Airbnb is not the only short-term rental facilitator, but it is the biggest, and it has driven change. It’s called Airbnb because the company’s founders started renting out air mattresses in their living room in San Francisco in 2007, creating an “Airbedandbreakfast.” In a B&B, the guest shares the owner’s accommodation and is served breakfast by the host. The economic benefit stays local.

As AIRDNA reports, “Airbnb works by empowering anyone (well, so long as they adhere to local regulations) to rent out a room or an entire property. …  the platform has captured the attention of real estate investors who have made Airbnb-ing their full-time job.”

The conjunction of the emergence of internet facilitators like Airbnb, increasing demand and changes in a now largely unregulated housing market has led to rapid growth in short-term rentals. Airbnb alone reached one million booked nights in 2011.

Jaume Collbon, Barcelona’s mayor in November 2024, identified housing as the city’s number one problem, reporting that in the past 10 years, rental prices in the city had soared by 68% while the cost of buying a house had climbed 38%. The 10,101 short-term rental licences became the target with announcements that the licences would not be renewed from 2018. It is a problem in Cape Town, too, with over 23,000 properties currently available according to Inside Airbnb. In Belgium, research by ING found that in 2024, around 1.23 million stays were booked via short-term rental platforms in Belgium, accounting for 12.3 million overnight stays.

Short-term rental platforms create value, but it is most often captured outside of the local economy by second and multiple homeowners, creating employment only for cleaners and maintenance workers. The local community are priced out of housing, suffers inflation in bars, cafes and restaurants, overcrowding, noise and partying.  Local authorities are increasingly being pressured by the electors to act.

The European Parliament, back in 2024, adopted plans (2024/1028) to increase transparency in the short-term rentals sector. The new regulations are designed to support better policymaking, improve transparency in the sector and encourage the sustainable development of tourism. According to Eurostat, guests spent 951.6 million nights in short-term rental accommodation booked through online platforms in 2025.

• When Member States opt for the new rules, registration procedures introduced by national authorities must be fully online and user-friendly. Hosts will receive a unique registration number for their property.
• Online platforms will be required to display and verify registration numbers and carry out random checks to help identify illegal listings. Public authorities will also be able to request the removal of non-compliant listings.
• Platforms will share monthly data on guest stays and nights booked with public authorities through a Single Digital Entry Point established by each Member State. Simpler reporting obligations will apply to small and micro platforms.
• Aggregated data collected under the Regulation will contribute to tourism statistics produced by Eurostat and support the development of innovative tourism-related services, while ensuring the protection of personal data.

Unfortunately, “The Regulation has been adopted in an “opt-in/opt-out” mode, meaning that Member States are not obliged to apply it.”

L’article EU acts on short-term rentals est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Across the continent, governments are increasingly looking beyond traditional growth models and towards sectors capable of creating jobs, attracting investment, strengthening national brands and connecting their economies more closely to global markets. In this evolving development landscape, tourism is no longer a secondary industry. It is emerging as a strategic instrument of economic transformation.

Angola is among the countries embracing this shift.

Under the leadership of João Lourenço, Angola is positioning tourism as a pillar of national development. This ambition extends far beyond attracting more visitors. It is about creating a platform for investment, infrastructure development, cultural diplomacy, regional growth and international confidence.

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This approach deserves attention well beyond Angola’s borders. It reflects a modern understanding of tourism as statecraft, recognising that tourism today is not only about destinations but also about perception, connectivity, competitiveness and trust. It shapes how a country presents itself to investors, international partners, travellers and global institutions.

Tourism occupies a unique position within economic policy because of its ability to connect multiple sectors simultaneously. It supports aviation, hospitality, construction, culture, technology, conservation, agriculture, creative industries and small businesses. Crucially, it creates opportunities not only in major cities but also in coastal communities, rural regions and emerging destinations.

When strategically managed, tourism becomes far more than an economic activity. It becomes a development framework capable of generating investment, supporting entrepreneurship and enhancing international visibility.

Angola’s current direction reflects this understanding. By giving tourism a more prominent role within its broader economic agenda, the government is signalling that the sector is viewed as a vehicle for long-term growth, private sector participation and global engagement.

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This political commitment is particularly significant because tourism development cannot rely solely on marketing campaigns or promotional slogans. Successful destinations are built through infrastructure investment, public-private partnerships, skills development, investment facilitation, cultural promotion and effective institutional coordination.

Roads, airports, hotels, coastal developments, national parks, conference facilities, digital platforms and hospitality training programmes are not isolated initiatives. Together, they form the foundations of a competitive tourism economy.

In this respect, Angola offers an important lesson for the wider African continent. Africa possesses some of the world’s most remarkable natural and cultural assets. Its landscapes, coastlines, cities, cuisine, music, traditions and heritage provide an extraordinary basis for tourism growth. Yet the next phase of development requires more than attractive destinations. It requires leadership, confidence and a clear national vision capable of transforming assets into opportunities and opportunities into investment.

By placing tourism at the centre of its economic repositioning, Angola is demonstrating how the sector can serve as a bridge between domestic development objectives and international capital. Tourism can strengthen a country’s global image, support new investment corridors and create platforms for dialogue between governments, businesses and international institutions.

This is especially relevant at a time when investors are seeking destinations with strategic clarity, long-term ambition and predictable policy environments. Capital follows confidence, and confidence is often built through coherent vision and political commitment.

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Angola’s tourism agenda also reflects a broader African priority: economic diversification through sectors that are inclusive, visible and scalable. Tourism remains one of the few industries capable of linking large-scale investment with local communities. A hotel development generates employment, but it also supports farmers, transport providers, designers, guides, restaurants, artisans and numerous other service businesses. A destination, therefore, becomes more than a place to visit; it becomes an ecosystem of economic opportunity.

For Angola, this multiplier effect has considerable potential. With its Atlantic coastline, cultural heritage, diverse landscapes, vibrant cities and growing investment profile, the country possesses many of the ingredients required to become one of Africa’s most compelling tourism destinations. The challenge now lies in continuing to build the strategic framework necessary to convert these advantages into sustainable economic value.

This is not solely an Angolan story. It reflects a broader African conversation about development, competitiveness and global positioning. Across the continent, there is growing recognition that tourism should not be viewed as a decorative sector but as a serious component of economic policy. Countries that succeed will be those that integrate tourism into wider strategies for investment, infrastructure, connectivity and international engagement.

The experience of Angola illustrates how political leadership can help drive that transformation. By incorporating tourism into a broader national vision, the country is contributing to a wider redefinition of tourism’s role in economic development. The sector is not simply about visitor arrivals, hotels or events. It is about how nations organise their future, communicate their ambitions and build confidence among global partners.

The lesson is straightforward: tourism succeeds when it is supported by political will.

Angola’s tourism strategy is therefore more than a sectoral initiative. It is an expression of national ambition and a reflection of a country seeking to engage with the world through confidence, purpose and long-term planning. It demonstrates how African nations can build development models rooted in their own assets, cultural identity and strategic priorities.

For investors, Angola merits attention. For policymakers across Africa, it offers a timely example of how tourism can contribute to economic diversification and international positioning. And for the global tourism industry, it serves as a reminder that the future of tourism will be shaped not only by destinations themselves, but by leaders who recognise the sector as one of the most powerful instruments of national development in the twenty-first century.

L’article Angola’s tourism push: how João Lourenço is rewriting Africa’s development playbook est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The difference is rarely the destination itself. Many countries possess coastlines, heritage sites, biodiversity, urban culture, hospitality traditions and landscapes capable of attracting international visitors. What separates successful tourism economies from unrealised potential is not simply the quality of the product, but the quality of political commitment behind it.

Tourism growth begins as a political decision.

Without clear political will at the highest level of the state, tourism tends to remain fragmented. Ministries may launch campaigns. Agencies may attend fairs. Investors may be invited. Master plans may be written. But without a coherent signal from the presidency, the prime minister’s office or the central executive authority, tourism policy often becomes cyclical, reactive and institutionally weak.

In such environments, the sector remains vulnerable to bureaucratic discontinuity, underinvestment, unclear regulation and limited investor confidence. Tourism potential may exist, but it does not mature into a structured economy.

The historical record is instructive.

Türkiye’s tourism transformation did not emerge spontaneously. It was the outcome of a deliberate policy shift beginning in the 1980s, when tourism was elevated into a strategic growth sector. Investment incentives, coastal development, hotel capacity expansion and infrastructure modernisation were aligned with a broader national objective. Over time, that political decision reshaped the Turkish economy, turning the country into one of the world’s most competitive tourism destinations.

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Egypt provides another example of the relationship between state policy and tourism resilience. Under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, tourism has remained embedded within a broader national development agenda that includes infrastructure expansion, heritage restoration, security management and destination repositioning. Egypt’s ability to recover and expand its tourism economy reflects not only the strength of its historical assets, but also the continuity of political attention given to the sector.

Indonesia has followed a comparable logic. By identifying tourism as a priority sector, the Indonesian state has connected destination development with infrastructure, regional growth, investment facilitation and employment policy. The result is a model in which tourism is not treated merely as a visitor industry, but as a platform for inclusive and sustainable development.

These cases illustrate a central policy lesson: tourism becomes transformative only when it is governed as a national economic strategy.

This lesson is particularly relevant for Africa.

The African continent holds some of the world’s most compelling tourism assets. Its natural landscapes, cultural diversity, wildlife, coastal corridors, historical depth and young populations represent an extraordinary foundation for future growth. Yet much of Africa’s tourism potential remains undercapitalized. The issue is not a lack of attraction. The issue is the absence, in many cases, of a fully institutionalized tourism investment framework supported by the highest levels of government.

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International investors do not evaluate destinations solely through the lens of beauty or market potential. They evaluate the political economy of the destination.

They ask whether the country offers stability. They ask whether the government sees tourism as a long-term priority or a short-term promotional exercise. They examine the clarity of the regulatory environment, the credibility of institutions, the quality of infrastructure, the availability of bankable projects and the consistency of leadership. In emerging markets, political confidence often precedes financial confidence.

This is where Angola deserves closer attention.

For decades, Angola was primarily viewed through the lens of energy, natural resources and post-conflict reconstruction. Today, however, the country is attempting to reposition itself within a broader economic diversification agenda. Tourism is increasingly part of that conversation. The country’s landscapes, Atlantic coastline, cultural heritage, biodiversity and urban development potential offer a basis for a more ambitious tourism economy.

But Angola’s most important asset may not be physical. It may be political.

Under the leadership of President João Lourenço, Angola has begun to articulate a clearer development agenda focused on reform, diversification, infrastructure and international engagement. In this context, tourism is not simply a sectoral opportunity; it is part of a wider state-building and economic modernization project.

For tourism investors, this distinction matters.

A country can possess attractive destinations but fail to attract capital if investors do not believe in the policy environment. Conversely, a country that demonstrates political stability, executive commitment and institutional seriousness can accelerate investor confidence even before its tourism infrastructure is fully mature.

This is the stage at which Angola now finds itself.

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The country is not yet a fully developed tourism powerhouse. Nor should it be measured by the standards of mature destinations that have benefited from decades of accumulated investment. Angola should instead be understood as an emerging destination economy at the beginning of a long-term transition. Its current value lies not only in what already exists, but in what can be built if political will, public policy and private capital are aligned.

That alignment is precisely what international tourism investment platforms are designed to support.

As Global Tourism Forum, our role in Angola is not limited to convening an event. It is to contribute to the construction of investor confidence around a country that is seeking to reposition tourism within its national development agenda. The Global Tourism Forum Angola Investment Summit is intended to function as a strategic interface between the Angolan state, international investors, hotel groups, financial institutions, aviation stakeholders, sustainability organizations and global tourism leaders.

Such platforms matter because investment does not move only toward opportunity. It moves toward confidence.

When investors gather in a country, meet its leadership, understand its priorities and observe institutional commitment, perception begins to change. The country becomes more legible to global capital. Its projects become more credible. Its tourism narrative becomes more structured. In emerging destinations, this process of confidence-building is often the first step toward long-term investment.

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Angola’s current tourism trajectory should therefore be viewed through a generational lens.

The foundations being laid today may not produce their full results immediately. Tourism economies are built over decades. Airports, hotels, coastal zones, cultural districts, national parks, training systems, investment legislation and destination brands require time. But the earliest stage of transformation is always political. Before the hotels are built, before the routes are expanded and before the visitor numbers rise, the state must decide that tourism matters.

President João Lourenço’s vision appears to recognize this reality.

By supporting Angola’s economic diversification and opening the country to broader international engagement, his leadership is helping create the conditions under which tourism can become a serious component of national development. The significance of this moment lies not merely in current projects, but in the strategic direction they represent.

The seeds being planted today may appear modest. But this is how destination economies are built. Türkiye’s tourism success was not visible in full at the beginning of its reform period. Egypt’s current momentum rests on years of political attention and institutional continuity. Indonesia’s tourism growth reflects a sustained national prioritization of the sector.

Angola is now entering its own formative phase.

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If the country maintains political consistency, strengthens institutional coordination, improves the investment environment and continues to position tourism as a pillar of diversification, the results could be profound. In twenty years, the decisions being made today may be remembered as the early foundations of Angola’s emergence as one of Africa’s most important tourism investment destinations.

For this reason, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to H.E. President João Lourenço. His vision and leadership are helping place tourism within Angola’s broader national development conversation. The initiatives undertaken today may begin as small institutional steps, but over time they can grow into a durable tourism economy that benefits future generations.

Tourism is not only about visitors. It is about the credibility of the state, the confidence of investors and the capacity of a country to convert its identity into economic value.

In the twenty-first century, tourism is increasingly a matter of statecraft.

And Angola, under its current leadership, is beginning to demonstrate that it understands the strategic importance of that choice.

L’article Tourism as statecraft: how political will can transform destination economies est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

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.