Skift Take
If you want to understand what's happening right now in global tourism, the first person you should listen to is the UNWTO's Taleb Rifai.
If you work in travel it's common to face a bit of burnout when it comes to talking and thinking about tourism on a local, global, or any other stage.
But once you get beyond all the issues of globalization or overdevelopment — and we're not afraid to address them — it's an amazing industry that trades in promise, relaxation, and joy in ways that few other fields can come close to.
Travel remains one of the few things that just eveeryone wants to do.
Over the summer Skift went to Madrid, which sits at the center of a tourism shift in Europe away from Italy and France and towards the Iberian peninsula and cities including Berlin and other emerging destinations. During this time we met with hotel and tourism executives, as well as tech leaders and others who could speak to the changing nature of the business. It also happens to be the home of the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
So, naturally, we went to talk again to Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization. We spoke to Secretary-General Rifai for the first time at the World Travel and Tourism Council's annual gathering in 2015. He was frank then, as he was this summer.
Rifai is the rare person who is able to mix pragmatism with inspiration. His office has marks of his native Jordan while he manages to discuss issues that go far beyond traditional political borders. At the same time he quickly pulls you into a discussion of tourism and its benefits as if it is the last saving grace of civilization.
Below is an edited version of that conversation.
Skift: I don't think there are many people as well positioned to think about the future of tourism as yourself. I wanted to get a sense from you, and I think this is an excellent time to be talking about it, especially considering global unrest and issues that have been happening for the last couple months.
Rifai: Let me make more than a point. Point number one is, tourism and travel together has proven to be such a resilient industry that nothing is going to stop it. This has become a fact. It may be halted in certain destinations for a short period of time. But if these destinations are well established in the tradition of receiving people and have the right infrastructure and the right expertise then in the immediate and long term it comes back even stronger than it was. This has been our experience in many, many destinations all over the world.
There is no stopping to this movement of peopl
