Interview: UNWTO Secretary-General on the World-Changing Power of Travel

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 W