What are tourism’s biggest challenges & threats over the next five years to 2027?

Over the next five years, what is the single biggest chal­lenge or threat facing tour­ism where you work, or that you have iden­ti­fied through your research and study? 

And what are the key strategies that your organ­isa­tion, des­tin­a­tion, or the industry at large should employ to over­come it?

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites question.

Your cor­res­pond­ent put the ques­tion to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers — “GT” Insight authors, “GT” Part­ners, and their invit­ees — and invited emailed writ­ten responses of no more than 300 words. 

Thanks to the 15 respond­ents who shared their thoughts. Their answers appear in the order received. Click/touch a name to go to their answer:

• Greg Bak­un­zi — Reviv­ing com­munity-led pro­grams in Rwanda
• Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci — Mass travel, under­ca­pa­city, and overtourism
• Sudip­ta K Sarkar — The low qual­ity of tour­ism & hos­pit­al­ity employment
• K Michael Hay­wood — The ‘great resig­na­tion’ from tour­ism & hos­pit­al­ity jobs
• Edwin Magio — Cli­mate change & cli­mate action
• Wolfgang Georg Arlt — ‘The cli­mate catastrophe’
• Jim Butcher — Trans­port­a­tion & energy
• Cato Hol­ter­man — Tour­ism is ‘highly sens­it­ive to cli­mate change’
• Yesaya San­dang — Rein­vent­ing tour­ism for ‘eco­lo­gic­al integ­rity’ in Indonesia
• Peace Mutoni — Slower growth, new mar­kets for Rwanda
• Sham­iso Nyajeka — Poor gov­ernance in Afric­an tour­ism development
• Richard A Shep­ard — COVID, war, infla­tion … What now for the Black Sea?
• Issoufou Adamou Has­sane — Social and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­ity in Niger
• Trav­is Clark — Suc­cess is a threat to Khao Sok, Thailand
• Jona­thon Day — ‘Cross­ing the chasm’: Main­stream­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity in tourism
• What do you think?

Pre­vi­ous “GT” Insight Bites:

• ‘Tour­ism is built on the back­bone of white suprem­acy’. What do you think?
• Really, what’s the dif­fer­ence? ‘Sus­tain­able tour­ism’ vs ‘regen­er­at­ive tourism’
• Want a career in tour­ism? Import­ant things you should know
• Diverse per­spect­ives on travel & tour­ism and a fairer world
• Diverse per­spect­ives on eco­nom­ic degrowth and tourism
• Diverse per­spect­ives on vis­it­or dispersion

Reviving community-led programs in Rwanda

Greg Bakunzi, Founder, Red Rocks Initiative for Sustainable Development & Red Rocks Rwanda

Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment works hand in hand with its sis­ter social enter­prise Red Rocks Eco-tours Rwanda with a man­date to link tour­ism, con­ser­va­tion, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in our community

As we look for­ward to the next years — con­tinu­ing to mit­ig­ate the neg­at­ive effects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on our vil­lage as a travel des­tin­a­tion — we are heav­ily chal­lenged with a need to revive our com­munity-led programs.

These pro­grams were the sole income-gen­er­at­ing activ­it­ies for our loc­al people pri­or to the pandemic.

We are com­mit­ted to help­ing our com­munity bounce back through a relief and response campaign. 

The concept is based on the belief that we shall only be able to pion­eer growth after the pan­dem­ic by put­ting people first; giv­ing them pro­grams and pro­jects that offer skills train­ing and job sup­port, while meet­ing the needs of dif­fer­ent groups of com­munity members.

As we work with like-minded indi­vidu­als to rebuild our soci­ety, we use approaches such as work­shops and sens­it­isa­tion cam­paigns to equip loc­al people with the know­ledge and oppor­tun­it­ies that will allow gradu­al social and eco­nom­ic growth with­in the community.

We are optim­ist­ic that, by join­ing efforts with oth­er com­munity part­ners, we can return to nor­mal lives as a tour­ism destination. 

We believe that we can con­trib­ute to wider soci­et­al recov­ery based on the eco­nom­ic growth, jobs, and oppor­tun­it­ies to trans­form lives that tour­ism offers, while ensur­ing our pro­grams address the need for envir­on­ment­al and socio-cul­tur­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity, con­ser­va­tion, and cli­mate action.

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Mass travel, undercapacity, and overtourism

Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Administrative Assistant, Alcambarcelona, Spain

Due to glob­al­isa­tion and the exper­i­en­tial eco­nomy trend, tour­ism des­tin­a­tions risk suf­fer­ing from under­ca­pa­city issues, lead­ing to overtourism. 

Post-pan­dem­ic data show alarm­ing tour­ism arrivals trends, which do not fol­low the same pace of des­tin­a­tion development. 

In the short-run, many estab­lished and emer­ging des­tin­a­tions will have to face num­bers of tour­ists that they will not be able to sus­tain nor accommodate 

Nowadays, soci­ety expects a lot, and in a short time. Man­age­ment and plan­ning pro­ced­ures are proven not to be as fast as soci­ety wishes and, there­fore, mass travel, under­ca­pa­city, and over­tour­ism are togeth­er going to present the main chal­lenge for the major­ity of grow­ing tour­ism destinations.

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The low quality of tourism & hospitality employment

Sudipta K Sarkar, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

A per­tin­ent chal­lenge that is rel­at­ively less dis­cussed across tour­ism circles is the qual­ity of tour­ism employment. 

Tour­ism jobs, across all sec­tors, are per­ceived to be ‘low-skilled’, less cre­at­ive, repet­it­ive, and less socio-eco­nom­ic­ally rewarding. 

Tour­ism cor­por­a­tions make profits com­par­able to their coun­ter­parts in oth­er (high-profit) sec­tors like tech or fin­ance, but that does not trans­late into jobs that are as luc­rat­ive or as esteemed as in those sectors. 

The undesirab­il­ity of the jobs avail­able has been one of the main reas­ons for the grave short­age of hos­pit­al­ity staff in the cur­rent post-pan­dem­ic scenario. 

Hos­pit­al­ity jobs are per­ceived to be less ful­filling, with long work­ing hours, lower remu­ner­a­tion, and few­er oppor­tun­it­ies for cre­ativ­ity and growth.

Many who lost hos­pit­al­ity jobs dur­ing the pan­dem­ic have moved to oth­er sec­tors that can offer rel­at­ively more reward­ing careers. 

There­fore, there is an urgent need to trans­form tour­ism employ­ment into a career that is more know­ledge-based, innov­a­tion-ori­ented, and that requires high­er-level skills and con­sid­er­able levels of cre­ativ­ity and crit­ic­al think­ing, res­ult­ing in high­er remuneration. 

This requires tour­ism busi­nesses to devise high­er-qual­ity, high­er-value exper­i­ences and ser­vices that will require know­ledge and cre­ativ­ity to pro­duce and deliver. 

Besides, employ­ee work-life bal­ance, par­tic­u­larly in the hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor, needs to improve. Work-life bal­ance in the hos­pit­al­ity industry falls short of oth­er indus­tries. And the lower salar­ies make things worse. 

Moreover, tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity is a highly volat­ile industry on the ‘front lines’ of soci­ety’s inter­ac­tions with the wider world. As such it is vul­ner­able to dis­ease, nat­ur­al calam­it­ies, and viol­ence (wheth­er from ter­ror­ism, socio-polit­ic­al unrest, or ran­dom acts) that often leads to job losses. 

There­fore, pro­du­cing high-qual­ity jobs that offer oppor­tun­it­ies for cre­ativ­ity and self-actu­al­isa­tion, high­er remu­ner­a­tion, and bet­ter work-life bal­ance is cru­cial to allure and retain a tal­en­ted workforce. 

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The ‘great resignation’ from tourism & hospitality jobs

K Michael Haywood, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

Cli­mate crises, without a doubt. Infla­tion­ary pres­sures and the emer­gence of eco­nom­ic woes, well of course. 

But, what hap­pens when most oper­at­ors through­out the world remain unable to attract or keep employees? 

• Their abil­ity to remain solvent in the imme­di­ate term becomes severely compromised. 
• Their inab­il­ity to avoid a deteri­or­a­tion in the qual­ity of des­tin­a­tion exper­i­ences threatens integ­rit­ies and identities. 

The ‘great resig­na­tion’ may bewilder, but when employ­ees feel ali­en­ated and dis­en­fran­chised from their jobs, the effects rever­ber­ate and cas­cade through­out communities.

Rec­ti­fic­a­tion begins by dig­ging to under­stand the ori­gins of peoples’ dis­con­tent that is pro­pelling nation­al­ist­ic fer­vor, pop­u­list rhet­or­ic, and intol­er­ance of the ‘oth­er’.

Blame, to a great extent, can be lev­elled at the adversit­ies caused by the fin­an­cial­isa­tion of eco­nom­ies and mar­kets which exerts sig­ni­fic­ant influ­ence over both eco­nom­ic policy and cor­por­ate beha­viour. What bevaviour?

• Beha­viour that con­tin­ues to pri­or­it­ise short-term gains through demands to main­tain a lim­ited ver­sion of share­hold­er value. 
• Beha­viour that down­plays desires to cre­ate func­tion­al, emo­tion­al, social, and life affirm­ing value for key stake­hold­ers — employ­ees, vis­it­ors, and cit­izens — includ­ing deliv­ery on ESG require­ments.  
• Beha­viour that fosters tox­ic organ­isa­tion­al cul­tures, a diminu­tion of trust, dis­in­terest in the eth­ics of care, and a sur­feit of con­trac­tu­al rela­tion­ships that ignore cov­en­antal rela­tion­ships with employees. 

For aeons, tour­ist­ic ser­vice work has had an image problem. 

It’s not that the industry isn’t favoured for its job-cre­at­ing poten­ti­al­ity, but that the mater­i­al bene­fits earned from employ­ment are expec­ted to act as prox­ies for (what few con­sider to be) pur­pose­ful and mean­ing­ful work.

Pur­su­ing and pro­mot­ing the concept of ‘com­munity shared value’ as the eth­os of ‘good tour­ism’ may help. But, shared value will remain a non-starter until the ‘great resig­na­tion’ is annulled through the bene­vol­ent actions of cov­en­antal lead­ers.

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Climate change & climate action

Edwin Magio, Teaching & Research Assistant, Moi University, Kenya; Commonwealth Scholar, Leeds Beckett University, UK

A for­ay into the exist­ing lit­er­at­ure shows that tour­ism faces a num­ber of challenges. 

These include, but are not lim­ited to, cli­mate change, over­tour­ism, COVID-19, poach­ing, wild­life loss, safety, and security. 

Argu­ably, the biggest chal­lenge that has become appar­ent in most des­tin­a­tions is cli­mate change. 

Cli­mate change is a major threat to tourism. 

Its impacts — such as erosion, storms, sea level rise, extreme tem­per­at­ures, dis­rup­tion of hab­it­ats, and dam­age to infra­struc­ture — are already being felt in many destinations. 

For example, changes in tem­per­at­ure and rain­fall in the Maa­sai Mara Nation­al Reserve in Kenya are lead­ing to a decrease in wild­life and vegetation.

Now is the time to act.

There is no stable future for the tour­ism industry if the cli­mate crisis and all its dis­rupt­ive con­sequences are not addressed. 

So, if we want to cre­ate more pros­per­ous and sus­tain­able tour­ism, we can­not ignore it.

Organ­isa­tions, des­tin­a­tions, and the whole industry must devel­op meas­ures to reduce green­house gas emis­sions to deal with cli­mate change for the bene­fit of our com­munit­ies and planet. 

There are already numer­ous reports, reg­u­la­tions, policies, legis­la­tion, recom­mend­a­tions, cam­paigns, and case stud­ies on best prac­tices for com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies to achieve the goals of the Par­is agreement. 

How­ever, all of this must be implemented. 

There may not be a bet­ter time to act than now.

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‘The climate catastrophe’

Wolfgang Georg Arlt, CEO, Meaningful Tourism Center, Germany

There can only be one answer: The cli­mate catastrophe. 

Many play­ers in the industry still dream of going back to the ‘good old times’ before the pan­dem­ic, when actu­ally they were already char­ac­ter­ised by dis­cus­sions about over­tour­ism and unne­ces­sary pollution. 

The cli­mate cata­strophe is chan­ging the para­met­ers for most des­tin­a­tions and ser­vice pro­viders. For example:

• Many beaches and city centres will become too hot, 
• Rivers will become unnav­ig­able for cruises dur­ing their high sum­mer sea­sons due to lack of water, and
• Ski resorts will face rising pro­duc­tion costs and grow­ing res­ist­ance to arti­fi­cial snow … 

… not in 2050, but with­in the next five years. 

The rising cost of mit­ig­at­ing the eco­nom­ic effects of cli­mate change will fur­ther­more res­ult in a decrease in glob­al con­sumer spend­ing power.

A key strategy of the Mean­ing­ful Tour­ism Cen­ter, besides provid­ing train­ing and con­sulta­tion ser­vices, is the estab­lish­ment of a Mean­ing­ful Tour­ism Index. 

The Index will use a six­fold bot­tom line; meas­ur­ing tour­ism by includ­ing all six major des­tin­a­tion stake­hold­ers: Vis­it­ors, the host com­munity, employ­ees, com­pan­ies, gov­ern­ments, and the environment. 

The Index is a major tool for des­tin­a­tions and com­pan­ies to under­stand their pos­i­tion and to identi­fy their strengths and weaknesses. 

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, every­body agreed that simply meas­ur­ing arrivals or overnights is not enough; that key per­form­ance indic­at­ors (KPIs) have to be developed that meas­ure the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of tour­ism and its costs and bene­fits for all stakeholders. 

Unfor­tu­nately, this has been all but for­got­ten. The UNWTO, for example, is meas­ur­ing tour­is­m’s post-COV­ID recov­ery by using only arrivals figures.

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Transportation & energy

Jim Butcher, Reader, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK

The biggest chal­lenge facing tour­ism is not really about tour­ism. It is the need for sus­tained high levels of invest­ment in infra­struc­ture and technology. 

This will involve gov­ern­ments provid­ing the con­di­tions for indi­vidu­als and busi­nesses to thrive: mod­ern air­ports, pub­lic trans­port sys­tems, bet­ter roads, and afford­able and reli­able energy. 

Enhanced mobil­ity bene­fits tour­ism and improves lives and eco­nom­ic pro­ductiv­ity. And invest­ment in pub­lic trans­port makes cit­ies live­able, ‘vis­it­able’, and attract­ive for investment. 

Yet the trans­port infra­struc­ture in many places is crumbling. 

Energy infra­struc­ture is also key. 

Rather than ‘net zero’ per se, our emphas­is should be on the pro­vi­sion of cheap­er, lower-emis­sion, and low-pol­lu­tion energy for all; to fuel devel­op­ment, espe­cially in poorer countries. 

We — the tour­ism industry included — cur­rently find ourselves held back by the fail­ure to invest in nuc­le­ar and renew­ables over decades. 

To address this chal­lenge we need demo­crat­ic, inter­ven­tion­ist states able to provide the invest­ment and future ori­ent­a­tion that indi­vidu­al firms on their own can’t. 

We also need to chal­lenge the declin­ism that tends to cari­ca­ture devel­op­ment as an envir­on­ment­al threat or cul­tur­al imposition.

In the uni­ver­sit­ies we’ve had the ‘cul­tur­al turn’, ‘mor­al turn’, and ‘loc­al turn’. I pro­pose a ‘future turn’; an ori­ent­a­tion towards what could be rather than what is. 

That sounds uto­pi­an, but I’d argue there is a dis­junc­ture between the great tech­no­lo­gic­al and social poten­tial for human advance­ment through sus­tained invest­ment, and the pess­im­ist­ic and inward-look­ing emphas­is all too often apparent. 

We have the poten­tial for new energy and mobil­ity revolu­tions. We have the pro­spect of hydro­gen- and bat­tery-powered air­craft, cheap light tram net­works, new-gen­er­a­tion nuc­le­ar, more effi­cient renew­ables, and improved bat­tery capacity. 

It is import­ant for tour­ism, and much else, that high­er and sus­tained invest­ment in tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture is prioritised. 

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Tourism is ‘highly sensitive to climate change’

Cato Holterman, Intern, Khiri Travel, Thailand

Tour­ism is an eco­nom­ic sec­tor that is highly sens­it­ive to cli­mate change. Where I am now based, in South­east Asia, cli­mate change will be the biggest threat and chal­lenge to the tour­ism industry over the next five years. 

Nat­ur­al dis­asters caused by cli­mate change, such as heat waves, floods, storms, and hur­ricanes, are increas­ing, which leads to a decrease in the allure of a des­tin­a­tion. Tour­ists may choose oth­er hol­i­day des­tin­a­tions that are not yet as sig­ni­fic­antly affected. 

The cli­mate change phe­nomen­on can­not eas­ily be con­trolled, but we can adopt adapt­a­tion and mit­ig­a­tion strategies to main­tain long-term tour­ism activity.

Tour­ism des­tin­a­tions exposed to extreme weath­er and nat­ur­al dis­asters have to be able to with­stand impacts on infra­struc­ture and dis­rup­tions to com­mer­cial activ­ity. Fur­ther­more they will require emer­gency pre­pared­ness meas­ures to ensure vis­it­ors and hosts remain safe. 

Inev­it­ably, adapt­a­tion, pre­pared­ness, main­ten­ance, and insur­ance costs will increase, which will reduce the prof­it­ab­il­ity and viab­il­ity of those destinations.

Tour­ism, on the oth­er hand, is not only a vic­tim. Tour­ism activ­it­ies also emit green­house gases, which is one of the causes of glob­al warming.

Strategies that tour­ism com­pan­ies and des­tin­a­tions can employ to mit­ig­ate their impact involve redu­cing their energy and fuel use, includ­ing chan­ging their modes of transportation. 

As a com­pany, Khiri Travel offers ‘slow travel’ tours; itin­er­ar­ies that are a min­im­um of 15 days that trans­port guests by boat, train, or car. Fur­ther­more, the accom­mod­a­tion we provide our guests is selec­ted based on social, cul­tur­al, and envir­on­ment­al factors. 

Khiri’s guests stay longer in one place to exper­i­ence more. At the same time they reduce the car­bon foot­print of their travels.

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Reinventing tourism for ‘ecological integrity’ in Indonesia

Yesaya Sandang, Lecturer, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Indonesia

In my view, in the next five years, tour­ism in Indone­sia will have to rein­vent itself for the sake of eco­lo­gic­al integrity. 

Through­out years of enga­ging with tour­ism stake­hold­ers and research­ing the nex­us of tour­ism and human rights, I have real­ised that the sense of crisis is yet to be intensified. 

Des­pite all the par­lance of sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment used by gov­ern­ment and industry, I have found that exist­ing reg­u­la­tions and prac­tice in the field dis­play the gap between talk­ing about sus­tain­able tour­ism and doing sus­tain­able tourism. 

This cor­res­ponds with evid­ence from des­tin­a­tions such as Bali, Labuan Bajo, Malang, and Yogyakarta, where unchecked tour­ism infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment comes at the expense of loc­al com­munit­ies’ access to water, and oth­er envir­on­ment­al problems. 

At the same time, stud­ies have shown that the increase in Indonesia’s domest­ic and for­eign tour­ism has raised con­cerns about income inequal­ity and live­li­hood sus­tain­ab­il­ity for loc­al people. 

A high level of reg­u­la­tion, as well as industry self-reg­u­la­tion, are essen­tial strategies to mit­ig­ate envir­on­ment­al and social costs. 

An assess­ment of the exist­ing con­di­tions and the broad­er impact on the envir­on­ment should be a leg­al require­ment pri­or to tour­ism devel­op­ment; and for tour­ism activ­it­ies at every des­tin­a­tion to be strictly mon­itored and controlled. 

In addi­tion, it is cru­cial to put the com­munity at the heart of des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment. As rights-hold­ers and envir­on­ment­al stew­ards, the vis­cer­al attach­ment loc­al com­munit­ies have to their envir­on­ment can be a driv­ing force to chal­lenge and alter the course of unchecked tour­ism development.

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Slower growth, new markets for Rwanda

Peace Mutoni, Intern, Red Rocks Initiative for Sustainable Development, Rwanda

As Rwanda went into lock­down, and inter­na­tion­al flights were groun­ded to stop the spread of the deadly coronavir­us, the tour­ism sec­tor became one of the hard­est-hit sectors. 

Tour oper­at­ors, hotel own­ers, and sup­pli­ers of food, trans­port, and souven­irs all exper­i­enced sig­ni­fic­ant losses. 

Due to the impact of COVID-19 on the sec­tor, over the next five years, tour­ism rev­en­ues will be below pre­vi­ously pro­jec­ted levels, and job growth will be slower, oppor­tun­it­ies fewer.

Fur­ther­more, Rwanda tour­ism will be mar­keted in the East Afric­an Com­munity (EAC) [com­pris­ing Bur­undi, Demo­crat­ic Repub­lic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tan­zania, and Uganda] and will be added onto oth­er itin­er­ar­ies with good tour­ism turnover, such as Kenya and Tanzania. 

What we plan to do at Red Rocks is to equip our staff with the skills to improve their capa­city, motiv­ate them, and give them access to prac­tic­al tools to help them apply their skills.

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Poor governance in African tourism development

Shamiso Nyajeka, Lecturer, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

While gov­ernance has become a buzzword in the cur­rent sus­tain­ab­il­ity dis­course, it is prob­ably one of Africa’s long-stand­ing challenges. 

Poor gov­ernance has hampered our pro­gress on mul­tiple fronts and tour­ism has not been spared. 

As coun­tries emerge from the dev­ast­at­ing impacts of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, tour­ism has been iden­ti­fied as a poten­tial driver of eco­nom­ic recovery. 

With the fast-approach­ing 2030 dead­lines for achiev­ing (i) the uni­ver­sal agenda of the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs) and (ii) the UNWTO Agenda for Africa 2030 — tour­ism for inclus­ive growth — the next five years are cru­cial in restor­ing the gains that were reversed by the pandemic. 

Africa’s poten­tial to attract tour­ists can hardly be doubted giv­en the continent’s abund­ant tour­ism resources. 

Attain­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity, inclus­ive growth, and resi­li­ence, on the oth­er hand, is no mean feat, espe­cially in the absence of good gov­ernance. Reach­ing these mile­stones largely depends on how des­tin­a­tions and their resources are governed. 

Incon­sist­ent policies, cor­rup­tion, lack of trans­par­ency, polit­ic­al power struggles, and exclu­sion of loc­al com­munit­ies are crit­ic­al threats to tour­ism devel­op­ment in Africa. Without sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ments in gov­ernance, tourism’s envis­aged role in steer­ing the continent’s devel­op­ment will remain a fantasy. 

Look­ing ahead to the next five years, our gov­ern­ments need to ser­i­ously con­sider get­ting back to the basics as far as gov­ernance is con­cerned. We must adopt home-grown solu­tions that have suc­cess­fully sus­tained our tra­di­tion­al soci­et­ies for centuries. 

For us, the Bantu people (mostly occupy­ing south­ern and east­ern Africa), Ubuntu provides an ideal found­a­tion for build­ing good governance. 

Embra­cing the philosophy’s prin­ciples, such as respect, fair­ness, empathy, com­munity, and self­less­ness, can help to restore essen­tial val­ues for pre­serving our humane­ness and repos­i­tion­ing the region on a more sus­tain­able tra­ject­ory of tour­ism development.

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COVID, war, inflation … What now for the Black Sea region?

Richard A Shepard, Trustee & CEO, Sustainable Rural Development International, UK

There is no single chal­lenge, but cli­mate change tops the list because it impacts everything else, includ­ing health. 

Although the effects of COVID have declined, the 2022 travel recov­ery remained below pre-COV­ID levels and elev­ated health as a chal­lenge for the sector. 

The Rus­si­an inva­sion of Ukraine severely impacted our own Black Sea travel pro­gram, but it also has a world­wide effect; polit­ic­al instabil­ity, infla­tion, and an eco­nom­ic slowdown. 

Rising energy and fuel prices and infla­tion con­trib­ute to high­er travel prices and each are sig­ni­fic­ant challenges. 

I sug­gest it is nearly impossible to identi­fy chal­lenges bey­ond 2024 if for no oth­er reas­on than we are bad at identi­fy­ing them one year in advance. 

For us, try­ing to think bey­ond 2023 and estab­lish clear plans is dif­fi­cult, at best. 

So, what are our plans? 

Dur­ing the off-sea­son we, togeth­er with our part­ners, will cre­ate more in-depth, exten­ded exper­i­ences groun­ded in our com­mit­ment to sustainability. 

To pre­pare for unfore­seen crises we will cre­ate a robust risk man­age­ment pro­cess to reduce uncer­tain­ties of actions, cat­egor­ising risks — nat­ur­al dis­asters, polit­ic­al issues, ter­ror­ism, health and eco­nom­ic crises — to inform busi­ness planning. 

Coupled with con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the UN SDGs, we feel that sec­tor threats can be sig­ni­fic­antly mitigated.

Finally, our over­all object­ive is to address the needs of our cus­tom­ers — trav­el­lers and com­munity stake­hold­ers — with an emphas­is on cre­ativ­ity, such as tak­ing vis­it­ors on the trip before they ever get there with more visu­al con­tent to help cap­ture attention.

We will dif­fer­en­ti­ate our form of sus­tain­able tour­ism, explain­ing the bene­fits for our com­munity part­ners to travellers. 

Prac­tic­ally, our book­ing sys­tem pro­cess will be more flexible. 

By keep­ing the interests of both cus­tom­er groups at the fore­front, we hope 2023 will see improve­ments in the qual­ity of the offer and the traveller.

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Social and economic stability in Niger

Issoufou Adamou Hassane, Co-founder & President, Tourism & Local Development (TOLD) Niger

The major chal­lenge for tour­ism in Niger over the next five years is the return of secur­ity to the coun­try’s tour­ist destinations.

The main cause of the deteri­or­a­tion of the secur­ity situ­ation in Niger stems from the lack of employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies for women and young people, espe­cially those liv­ing in rur­al areas.

The lack of jobs has made young people easy prey for crim­in­al organ­isa­tions, which rely on them to com­mit the most despic­able acts that tar­nish the image of the coun­try among inter­na­tion­al tour­ist customers.

To meet this chal­lenge, the NGO TOLD intends to imple­ment ini­ti­at­ives to cre­ate jobs and con­trib­ute to social and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­ity in the country’s tour­ist destinations.

Our actions will focus on train­ing loc­al people on the pre­ser­va­tion and enhance­ment of Niger­’s nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age, the devel­op­ment of com­munity cul­tur­al events, the eco­nom­ic empower­ment of women in tour­ism, the cre­ation of her­it­age clubs in schools, and the devel­op­ment of youth entre­pren­eur­ship in tour­ism and heritage.

Our vis­ion is to ensure that people are bet­ter edu­cated about their her­it­age in order to act pos­it­ively for its pre­ser­va­tion and promotion. 

Such an approach will cre­ate jobs and wealth for the com­munit­ies, pro­mote the return of secur­ity, and con­trib­ute to the reviv­al of sus­tain­able tour­ism in Niger.

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Success is a threat to Khao Sok, Thailand

Travis Clark, General Manager, Anurak Community Lodge, Thailand

The greatest threat is not if tour­ism will return to pre-COV­ID levels but rather if/when it will des­troy what makes places like Khao Sok, Thai­l­and so special. 

Khao Sok boasts one of the old­est and most scen­ic nation­al parks in Thai­l­and; beauty to escape to.

Big cor­por­a­tions have always had Khao Sok in their sights but have held off due to a lack of infra­struc­ture in the area. Giv­en the cur­rent state of tour­ism there is a real con­cern that they may enter the region regardless.

While lar­ger busi­nesses increase tour­ism, which seems like a net pos­it­ive, how­ever real estate devel­op­ment, high­ways, and retail out­lets tend to come with them. 

Each new devel­op­ment encroaches on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and the com­munity atmo­sphere that make Khao Sok desirable.

In the 1970s, Patong in Phuket was a trop­ic­al beach para­dise. Fifty years later it is laden with hotels, bars, res­taur­ants, shops, stalls … The beach is an afterthought.

Khao Sok has man­aged to con­tain tour­ism to a hand­ful of small busi­nesses with roots in the des­tin­a­tion. Wheth­er Khao Sok is destined to fall into a pit of ‘suc­cess’ only time will tell.

To com­bat over­de­vel­op­ment, hotels like ours are cooper­at­ing to spread aware­ness of how to oper­ate sustainably.

Here at Anurak Lodge we work with glob­al organ­isa­tions like Travel Life to ensure that we meet min­im­um stand­ards, as well as with loc­al author­it­ies and part­ners on devel­op­ing a green zone and set­ting build­ing standards. 

We also pur­sue our own pro­jects. For Rain­forest Rising, for example, we replace invas­ive plants with indi­gen­ous flora.

Over­all, tour­ism is good. It provides jobs and income for people. And we wel­come growth and expan­sion if it is done sustainably.

The people and envir­on­ment that attract tour­ists to Khao Sok need to be looked after. That respons­ib­il­ity starts with us.

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‘Crossing the chasm’: Mainstreaming sustainability in tourism

Jonathon Day, Associate Professor | Graduate Program Director, White Lodging — J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management

For an idea that has been around for over 50 years, and is appeal­ing to poli­cy­makers, aca­dem­ics, and even busi­nesspeople, sus­tain­ab­il­ity still has a long way to go to become stand­ard oper­at­ing procedure. 

The chal­lenge of main­stream­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity in tour­ism must be the pri­or­ity today; and for the imme­di­ate future. 

Research­ers in the dif­fu­sion of tech­no­lo­gies, policies, and busi­ness activ­it­ies call this “cross­ing the chasm”. This term refers to the great leap required for an idea or tech­no­logy to move bey­ond ‘earli­er adop­ters’ and be embraced by the majority. 

Even as we acknow­ledge there is still work to be done at every level of tour­ism — by des­tin­a­tions, by busi­nesses and enter­prises, and by trav­el­lers — I remain optim­ist­ic that we are fur­ther ahead on the jour­ney than it first appears. A couple of reasons: 

1. Tour­ism is a com­plex sys­tem, and fre­quently mem­bers of the sys­tem are unaware of pro­gress being made by oth­er sys­tem mem­bers. As a res­ult, there is a sense that any­one doing the work of sus­tain­ab­il­ity is an out­lier, for­ging a path that oth­ers have yet to fol­low. The evid­ence is mount­ing that this is no longer true. 

2. Sus­tain­ab­il­ity requires more than com­plet­ing a single task, but atten­tion to a port­fo­lio of activ­it­ies. Some of those activ­it­ies are more typ­ic­ally prac­tised than oth­ers, but the truth is that sus­tain­ab­il­ity prac­tices are more com­mon than they are giv­en cred­it for.

One way we help “cross the chasm” is to show that social and envir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity actions are not niche activ­it­ies but com­mon across the sector. 

Fail­ing to adopt sus­tain­ab­il­ity means that you are the out­lier, not the majority. 

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What do you think?

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Tour­is­m’s chal­lenges and threats. Cobra image by P Schrein­er (CC0) via Pixabay.

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