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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - TOURISE, in collaboration with Oxford Economics, today released a new report , “Resilience in a World that Doesn’t Reset: Redesigning Tourism for an Era of Permanent Disruption.” The analysis of 85 major crises over two decades shows a clear pattern: in a world defined by continuous shocks, destinations that act before disruption hits recover up to 1.5 times faster than those that wait. In a world that does not reset between crises, disruption is a constant feature of the global tourism landscape. The real test for destinations measures how they prepare for volatility, protect traveler confidence, and maintain continuity ahead of such events. His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of TOURISE Using the current Middle East crisis as a lens, where Gulf hubs carry roughly 14 percent of global transit traffic, the report provides investors and policymakers with practical guidance for navigating a system in which disruption is now the norm. Key findings include: Three scenarios, one conclusion: recovery depends on confidence, connectivity, and affordability. The report models three pathways for the current Middle East crisis. If the ceasefire holds, global travel grows about 6 percent in 2026; if hostilities resume, it falls about 1 percent; and under sustained disruption, it declines about 3 percent and remains weak into 2027. Across every scenario, the report concludes that recovery is determined less by the crisis itself than by how quickly confidence, connectivity, and affordability can be restored. Confidence now travels faster than people. In 2025, viral rumors of a megaquake drove booking declines of up to 50 percent from some East Asian markets despite no scientific basis, showing how misinformation can depress demand before any physical disruption. Tourism is recovering faster, but systemic crises are the new test. Average recovery times fell from about 24 months in the early 2000s to 10 to 12 months today. However, increasingly complex, multi-country disruptions are beginning to slow this trend. Preparation is becoming a competitive advantage. Saudi Arabia, which welcomed 37.2 million tourists in the first quarter of 2026, an 8 percent year-on-year increase despite regional volatility, and reached its 100 million annual-visitor target seven years early, illustrates how diversification under Saudi Vision 2030 translates into measurable resilience. Global tourism has proven remarkably resilient, reaching a record 1.52 billion international arrivals in 2025 despite a decade defined by natural and man-made disasters. The lesson learned is that resilience can be built before disruption occurs, in the actions destinations take to prepare. In a world that no longer resets between crises, preparedness is becoming a core measure of competitiveness. Adam Sacks, President of Tourism Economics The full report is available now at www.TOURISE.com .

The week opens with two hospitality.today pieces that form the logical sequel to Friday's AI pricing extraction argument. Friday established that AI agents are marking up room prices using guest data while hotels receive only their listed rate. Today the same authors ask the prior question: even when the guest completes a stay, who owns that relationship? The answer, systematically, is not the hotel. Alongside that, Are Morch names a failure mode that has been building quietly as AI adoption accelerates: five siloed tools giving contradictory signals to the same guest. You Own the Resort. You Don't Own Its Guests. hospitality.today and reconline AG map the guest relationship stack that sits above a hotel property: OTAs capture the initial transaction and the guest data that comes with it, wholesalers abstract inventory before the guest ever engages with the brand, luxury travel advisors hold the relationship with the highest-value guests, and now AI platforms are inserting a recommendation layer between discovery and booking that the hotel cannot see, measure, or influence. By the time a guest checks in, the hotel has typically contributed the room, the staff, and the experience, while each intermediary has captured a piece of the relationship that drives the next booking. The piece makes the direct booking argument in its most structural form: not as a commission-saving measure but as the only channel through which a hotel can actually own the guest relationship rather than borrow it for the duration of a stay. Read the argument → Your Gen Z Guest Finds Hotels Through Influencers. Not Search. Not OTAs. hospitality.today and reconline AG identify a discovery channel shift that most hotel marketing budgets have not yet reflected: Gen Z travelers, who will represent 27% of all travel spend by 2028, report finding hotels primarily through social media creators rather than search engines or OTA browse. The operational implication is precise: offering stays in exchange for content is accessible to independent hotels without marketing budgets, but the real cost is staff time spent vetting pitches, negotiating content rights, and filtering for authentic audience fit rather than follower count. The piece connects directly to today's guest ownership argument. Influencer-discovered guests arrive with a creator relationship that predates any brand relationship, which means the hotel has an unusually short window to establish direct loyalty before that guest returns to the creator's next hotel recommendation. Read the analysis → Your Hotel Now Has Five AIs, and None of Them Have Met Each Other Are Morch identifies a failure mode accumulating as hotel AI adoption accelerates: properties deploying separate AI tools for revenue management, guest messaging, booking assistance, reputation monitoring, and F&B recommendations, with no shared data layer or coordination logic between them. The result is a guest experience that receives contradictory signals: a pricing AI offers a discount while a messaging AI sends a upsell prompt, a reputation AI flags a complaint while a booking AI offers to resell the same room type. The hotel feels less coherent after AI adoption

Introduction: The Illusion of the Full House There is a classic operational milestone that many hotel general managers love to celebrate: hitting 100% occupancy. Hanging a “No Vacancy” sign and…

Hotel construction in the Middle East continues to increase despite the demand-side disruption caused by the U.S.-Iran war, according to a new report from Lodging Econometrics.  A record 724 projects…

As millions of travellers head abroad during the peak summer holiday season, Europe has reinforced its position as the world's leading leisure travel destination, capturing one-third of all global leisure travel spending in 2025, according to new 2026 EIR data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), sponsored by Chase Travel, Lead Research Partner. The latest figures show that global leisure travel spending reached $6.15TN in 2025, up 3.5% year-on-year and accounting for 80.5% of total global travel expenditure. Of this, Europe attracted $2TN, equivalent to $1 in every $3 spent worldwide on leisure travel, highlighting the region's enduring appeal as travellers embark on this year's summer holidays. Southern European destinations continue to be at the heart of this success. France, Spain, Italy and Türkiye remain among the most sought-after summer destinations globally, benefiting from strong international demand, diverse source markets, world-class tourism offerings and robust connectivity. As Europe experiences another busy summer season, the region's tourism performance reflects not only strong seasonal demand but also its longer-term competitiveness. Leisure spending growth remained resilient across key destinations in 2025, with France expanding by 3.6%, Spain by 2.6% and Italy by 2.2%. Looking ahead, Europe's growth momentum is expected to continue beyond the summer months and into 2026, when the region is forecast to expand by 3.7%, outpacing the global average of 3.1%. Italy is projected to lead this next phase of growth with a 4.7% increase in leisure spending, followed by Spain (+4.3%), Türkiye (+4.1%) and France (+2.6%), reinforcing Southern Europe’s position as a powerhouse of global tourism demand. This sustained growth is also being supported by evolving global travel patterns, with Southern European destinations increasingly benefiting from demand redirected from other regions, further strengthening their competitive positioning. With summer travel at its peak, Europe continues to set the pace for global leisure tourism, capturing one-third of all spending worldwide and demonstrating the strength, diversity and resilience of its tourism sector. Southern Europe remains the engine of this growth. Destinations such as Spain, Italy, France and Türkiye continue to attract strong international demand thanks to their unique visitor experiences, excellent connectivity and competitive tourism offerings. With millions of travellers currently holidaying across the continent, it is essential that destinations continue investing in infrastructure, connectivity and sustainable tourism management to support future growth and maintain their global competitiveness. The outlook for 2026 shows Europe is well positioned to continue leading global Travel & Tourism. Gloria Guevara, WTTC President & CEO Notes to Editors: WTTC’s Economic Impact Research is produced in partnership with Oxford Economics and is among the world’s most authoritative datasets on the economic contribution of Travel & Tourism. Forecasts for 2026 are based on current economic and geopolitical conditions at the time of publication and include assumptions related to inflation, energy prices, consumer demand, and regional geopolitical developments. As the global situation evolves, projections may be subject to change.

Ask most owners where their breakfast food cost problem lives and they will point at the kitchen, the supplier, or the person setting up the buffet at five in the morning. In my experience, they are almost always pointing in the wrong direction. The real leak is usually the door. It comes down to one simple question that nobody at the property is asking: is the person reaching for that second waffle actually a guest of the hotel? When that question gets answered cleanly every morning, the numbers fall into line. When it doesn't, your waste log becomes the place where the losses go to hide. This week's story is about a 130-room property where the breakfast cost per occupied room had been climbing for two years. The owner blamed the breakfast attendant. The GM blamed the breakfast attendant. Meanwhile, the breakfast attendant — a woman named Rosa who had been running that room since 2012 — knew exactly where the money was going. She had it written down in a notebook. Neighbors wandering in from the apartment complex next door. A sales rep with a cooler. A guest with a five-year compensation habit nobody was tracking. About $18,000 a year, walking out the door with a smile. Then a new GM showed up on a Tuesday morning, sat in the corner with a cup of coffee for ninety minutes, and saw it all for herself. What she did over the next ninety days cut the breakfast cost per occupied room by 21 percent — without a single hard word to a guest. It's a story about controls, but more than that it's a story about listening to your people. The cheapest control in the building is a conversation with the person who runs the room. Grab a coffee and read on. And if you have ever worked a breakfast shift, I promise you already know these characters. If you have ever worked a continental breakfast shift in a limited-service hotel, you already know what I am about to write about. You know the regulars by face before you know their names. You know the trick the guy in the gray pickup pulls with his cooler. You know which family shows up four people deep on a one-room reservation. You know which guest threatens the one-star review every time, and you know which front desk associate folds every time. You know what the food cost number is going to look like at the end of the month before anybody runs the report. And you know that nobody at the property is going to do anything about any of it, because nobody at the property has worked a breakfast shift since the building opened. This chapter is about a breakfast attendant named Rosa, a property whose owner thought the food cost problem was Rosa, and a new general manager who solved it in ninety minutes by getting up early and sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee. The property

Indigenous tourism may offer local communities a way to preserve and protect their cultural identity while achieving greater economic resilience. However, implementing such initiatives is not without challenges. Research led by Dr Roshis Krishna Shrestha of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) with the Khokana Newar community of Nepal reveals how community-led approaches grounded in Indigenous governance and cultural values can turn these challenges into opportunities for sustainable, culturally anchored tourism. Indigenous tourism has emerged as a powerful avenue for communities worldwide to reclaim their cultural identity, strengthen their economic resilience, and maintain connections with their traditional lands and heritage”, the authors begin. For many Indigenous communities, tourism offers a promising means of alleviating the lingering socio-economic consequences of colonialism. Regrettably, however, implementing tourism initiatives in such contexts can be challenging. “The promise and perils of Indigenous tourism have been well documented”, the researchers warn. Without proper consultation of or consent from cultural guardians, such as Indigenous Elders, tourism may result in the commodification of local heritage and resources even as it opens up new opportunities for economic development. As such heritage and resources are hugely significant to Indigenous identity and need to be protected and preserved, it is vital for Indigenous tourism initiatives to be “community-based, aligned with collective aspirations, and respectful of Indigenous knowledge and heritage”, in the authors’ words. A solution may lie in community-based tourism (CBT), which encourages and enables community members to collaborate and pool their resources and capabilities to achieve desired socio-economic outcomes. “This approach often leads to more equitable income distribution and community involvement”, say the researchers, “compared to government or corporate-led initiatives. Yet the effectiveness of CBT in practice is still unclear, and obstacles to its implementation persist, including a tendency to prioritise industry vitality over community welfare and failure to fully legitimise the agency and voice of individuals in the community. “This shortcoming underscores the need for a more nuanced approach that balances individual autonomy with collective agency”, the researchers observe. Such an approach may be afforded by community-based Indigenous tourism (CBIT), which extends CBT by placing Indigenous cultural knowledge and values at the core of tourism development. “CBIT fundamentally integrates Indigenous knowledge systems and values, anchoring them within the community’s own narratives and lived experiences”, the authors explain. “Such a framework not only preserves cultural integrity but also fosters sustainable tourism practices that are intrinsically aligned with Indigenous worldviews and aspirations”. Importantly, this approach relies on the relationality of Indigenous values and beliefs, “which view personhood as inherently connected with others and shaped through shared experiences, challenges and actions”. Effective self-determined tourism initiatives – those involving community-wide planning and collaboration – can integrate these relational values and beliefs into an economic paradigm while maintaining cultural empowerment. Although the functional and structural aspects of CBT have been extensively researched, its Indigenisation has received surprisingly little attention from scholars to date. “The potential of community-based tourism to foster cultural empowerment though Indigenous ontologies,

📰 April 2026, Expedia sent livestreamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr through five Caribbean countries in 12 hours. Sint Maarten's search demand rose 70%, Guadeloupe's by 50%. Watkins boasts 50 million followers on both YouTube and Twitch. In 2025, the average creator's income was $44,000, with one in nine earning six figures. Mid-tier creator Gabby Beckford demands at least $5,000 per post. Hotels like Claridge's filter creators' requests for free stays, emphasizing creator fit over reach.

Set on a secluded peninsula in Maharashtra, Kaviar Collaborative’s lakeside retreat uses soaring spaces, natural materials and vast windows to frame the landscape

🏨 Hilton's 2026 report highlights "hushpitality" as a trend, with 65% of hotels short-staffed during the 2024 holidays. By 2025, guest-service hours dropped from 0.46 to 0.40 per room, reflecting staff cuts amid rising payrolls by 22.1% since 2019. J.D. Power's 2026 survey, covering 44,787 guests across 104 brands, emphasizes the importance of staff interactions and hospitality over tech-driven services. Despite industry trends, real hospitality involves personal attention and empathy, not just service standards.