Principle 3: Foster responsible technology and innovation Promote advances that enhance and connect experiences, ensuring equity and data and privacy security, while also reducing friction throughout the value chain. Technology’s rapid evolution offers opportunities to enhance experiences, improve operational efficiency and address challenges. However, realizing these benefits while avoiding unintended consequences requires putting human connection and the sustainability of the sector at the centre of technology development and implementation. Technology should be used to enhance authentic human connections rather than replace them, while ensuring equitable access, protecting privacy, enabling personalization and reducing operational friction throughout the traveller’s journey. This principle recognizes that technology’s impact depends on its design, deployment and governance, requiring ethical frameworks and inclusive approaches to maximize benefits while minimizing risks. Principle 4: Develop crisis-resilient strategies Create frameworks and mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of geopolitical, environmental and demographic disruptions and ensure the sector’s long-term financial viability. The increasing frequency of global disruptions requires systemic approaches to building resilience through tourism ecosystems. Rather than treating crises as exceptional events, strategies that anticipate and prepare for disruptions as regular features in the operating environment must be developed. Crisis-resilient strategies anticipate potential disruptions through systematic monitoring and scenario planning; build adaptive capacity through flexible business models; develop rapid response capabilities for effective action during crises; and create recovery mechanisms that accelerate return to functionality after disruptions. This principle recognizes resilience as a skill set rather than a contingency measure, enabling the sector to maintain stability and competency and even gain competitive advantage during turbulent periods. Principle 5: Encourage mutual benefit and understanding between residents and visitors Engage local communities in co-designing tourism strategies to promote mutual benefits while developing proper destination management solutions. The growing friction between visitors and residents threatens both community well-being and tourism sustainability. Addressing this tension requires approaches that actively engage local communities in tourism governance while implementing management systems that balance visitor experience with quality of life for residents. Harmonious coexistence places community needs and preferences at the same level or higher than those of visitors during tourism planning; creates transparent mechanisms for resident participation in decision-making; implements visitor management systems that prevent negative impacts on quality of life; and ensures a fair and visible distribution of tourism benefits to host communities. This principle recognizes that tourism’s social licence to operate depends on maintaining positive relationships with residents and preserving the local character that increasingly drives destination appeal. Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point: Principles for Transformative Growth 23

Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point 2025