In the 2020s, disruption has become a constant rather than an exception. For T&T, geopolitical conflict, economic volatility, climate stress, digital disruption and workforce constraints are now testing destinations more frequently. The destinations that do best will be those that can keep functioning, maintain trust and adapt as circumstances become more complex – not those that simply grow the fastest. Five priorities stand out for governments, national and regional tourism authorities, airlines, accommodation providers, platforms and investors.

One of the clearest lessons from recent years is that destinations benefit from having multiple sources of demand. While the TTDI shows improvement in tourism development conditions, recovery and performance have varied considerably across economies and regions, highlighting the value for businesses and destinations of a diverse mix of markets, visitor segments and travel seasons.

Diversification became particularly evident during and after the pandemic, when recovery patterns varied significantly by market and region. Destinations with strong domestic and regional travel activity were often better positioned to sustain tourism activity while international travel remained constrained. More broadly, excessive dependence on any single source market, visitor segment or travel season can leave destinations exposed to economic shocks, geopolitical tensions, changing traveller preferences or disruptions to transport networks.

Diversification is therefore about reducing concentration risk by broadening the sources, purposes and timing of travel demand. This means:

Balanced tourism activity creates a more stable base for growth. It makes destinations less exposed when a major source market weakens, an air corridor closes, business travel slows, travellers become more price-sensitive during times of economic stress or climate pressures affect seasons. It also supports more consistent investment in tourism infrastructure, services and workforce development.

For governments and national and regional tourism authorities, this means aligning marketing, connectivity and product development strategies around a broader mix of markets and visitor segments. For airlines, tour operators and platforms, it means creating routes, products and experiences that attract different types of traveller throughout the year. Diversification can also help destinations capture demand redirected from more constrained or disrupted competitors.

Case study: Japan – Diversifying demand and reducing concentration risk.

TTDI context: Japan’s travel and tourism strengths have traditionally rested on its world-class transport connectivity and rich cultural and non-leisure resources. Since 2024, however, the key drivers of its rise to the top of the TTDI rankings have been strong gains in demand sustainability and openness. Japan was the second-highest improver globally in the T&T Demand Sustainability pillar and the fourth-highest improver in Openness to T&T, helping the country attract a broader mix of visitors and strengthen resilience to changing travel patterns.

The pressure: Heavy reliance on a small number of source markets can expose destinations to geopolitical tensions, economic shocks and shifting traveller preferences. At the same time, the concentration of visitors in major tourism hubs can create crowding and infrastructure pressures, while limiting the benefits that tourism brings to other regions.

The response: Japan has pursued a strategy to diversify both its visitor markets and its destinations. Alongside efforts to attract travellers from a wider range of countries, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has promoted regional destinations and encouraged travel beyond Japan’s major urban gateways.⁴⁰ Initiatives have included targeted marketing campaigns in new markets and programmes designed to increase visits to smaller cities and regional areas.

The outcome: Japan welcomed a record 42.7 million international visitors in 2025, despite a sharp decline in Chinese arrivals at the end of the year.⁴¹ Over the longer term, the composition of T&T activity has become more diverse: the share of visitors from mainland China, Korea, Rep., Taiwan, Province of China and Hong Kong SAR, China fell from 70% in 2019 to 65% in 2025, while the share from the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East increased from 14% to 18%. At the same time, international visitor nights in regional areas grew by 14.1% year on year in October 2025, compared with a 0.8% decline in Japan’s three major urban areas.⁴²

Why it matters: Japan demonstrates that diversification is about resilience as much as growth. By extending its visitor base and encouraging more travel beyond major tourism centres, the country has reduced concentration risk while continuing to achieve record tourism performance. For destinations facing similar challenges, the lesson is that openness, connectivity and destination development can help build a more balanced and adaptable tourism system.

If diversification shapes where demand comes from, access, visibility and operating continuity determine whether that demand can be realized.

Air Transport Infrastructure is one of the largest advantages enjoyed by the top 20 economies in the TTDI, with average scores more than 50% higher than those of the rest of the index. The ability to move people efficiently and reliably remains a defining feature of the topperforming destinations.

However, physical connectivity alone is not enough. Openness, visa policy and border management play an important role in translating transport access into tourism flows. Destinations must also be visible, trusted and easy to find across the digital channels and AI-powered tools that travellers use to plan and book trips. For many destinations, the challenge is not a lack of information but coordinating it across multiple organizations and ensuring it is accurate and machine-readable. TTDI results suggest that many destinations are still adapting to these changes. As AI-powered search and recommendation tools play a greater role in travel planning, ensuring destination content is visible and accessible may become as important as traditional tourism promotion.

At the same time, destinations need to remain operational when disruption occurs. As highlighted by the World Bank, resilient tourism systems depend not only on physical infrastructure but also on risk planning, preparedness, coordination and recovery capabilities that enable destinations to adapt to disruption and restore visitor confidence.⁴³ This includes:

Preserving access is about more than new infrastructure or restored routes. It is also about ensuring destinations remain easy to find, navigate and access when disruption occurs – so that interest still translates into travel.

For governments and regulators, this means treating transport connectivity, visa and border policy, digital infrastructure, early-warning systems and crisis communication as part of the same resilience agenda. For airlines, platforms and large operators, it means having back-up systems and clear traveller communication so that disruption can be managed quickly and travellers can re-book or re-route when problems occur.

Case study: Germany's national tourism data platform – Making destinations visible, consistent and trusted in an AI-mediated discovery system.

TTDI context: Ranking sixth globally, Germany is a leader in tourism Digital Demand and destination branding. The country ranks third for cultural tourism Digital Demand, first for non-leisure tourism Digital Demand and 10th for Country Brand Strategy. These strengths highlight Germany’s ability to generate global interest in everything from local gastronomy and historical sites to business travel, entrepreneurship and exchange programmes.

The pressure: Travel discovery is now shaped by digital platforms, search engines and, more recently, generative-AI assistants. When tourism data is fragmented across hundreds of tourism boards, transport providers, attractions and other stakeholders, maintaining consistent up-to-date information becomes difficult. Inconsistent formats, standards and governance can make it harder for digital platforms, search engines and AI platforms to provide accurate, up-to-date content.

The response: The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) launched the Knowledge Graph in 2023,⁴⁴ creating a single, machine-readable source of tourism information for Germany. Data on attractions, events, accommodation and services from regional and city tourism boards and other providers is harmonized and made available to search engines, platforms and AI platforms. The GNTB works with tourism organizations across all 16 federal states, creating a shared database of around 500,000 tourism records. The data is openly accessible, allowing tour operators, start-ups and other third parties to develop new digital services. One example is Emma, an AI-powered travel assistant that uses the data to provide personalized travel recommendations and information.⁴⁵

Why it matters: As travel discovery shifts towards AI-mediated channels, destination data is becoming critical digital infrastructure rather than simply a marketing asset. Maintaining accurate, structured and shareable information requires coordination across multiple tourism stakeholders, but it can also support innovation, visibility and operating continuity. Germany’s approach demonstrates how destinations can improve their discoverability and credibility across rapidly evolving digital channels while enabling new tourism services and applications.

Price Competitiveness was one of the weakest-performing pillars in the TTDI between 2024 and 2026, reflecting rising costs across many tourism economies. At the same time, many destinations continued to attract visitors despite higher prices, suggesting that competitiveness increasingly depends on factors beyond affordability alone.

Affordability remains a powerful advantage for many destinations. Countries such as Albania have benefitted from offering visitors a more affordable alternative to neighbouring destinations while still providing a compelling tourism experience. However, preserving competitiveness is becoming more challenging as inflation, rising labour costs and more expensive transport place pressure on prices across the sector. As a result, destinations need to strengthen other sources of competitive advantage alongside affordability.

Competing on value therefore requires a shift in approach. Rather than relying solely on volume growth or discounting, destinations need to focus on:

Different destinations can succeed in different ways. With tighter budgets, both premium destinations that justify their price and lower-cost destinations that offer credible value can gain ground. What matters is not whether a destination is expensive or affordable, but whether travellers feel the experience and service justify the cost.

For destination managers and businesses, this means making value visible and credible through service reliability, design and communication. Reputation and brand remain central to this effort. However, value is shaped not only by the visitor experience itself but also by confidence that destinations can maintain the environmental, cultural and social qualities that make them attractive over time. In some market segments, sustainability is also becoming a more important factor in destination choice.

Affordability will continue to influence traveller choices and create opportunities for destinations that offer strong value for money. But long-term performance depends on combining affordability, quality, trust and destination stewardship in ways that reinforce a destination’s lasting appeal.

Case study: Costa Rica – Competing on value through sustainability and destination quality.

TTDI context: Costa Rica is one of the least price-competitive destinations in the Americas, ranking 86th globally on the Price Competitiveness pillar. Despite this, it ranks among the world’s leading performers on tourism sustainability, placing fourth on the T&T Sustainability dimension and sixth on the T&T Demand Sustainability pillar. It also ranks third for Prioritization of T&T, reflecting a long-standing focus on public-sector support, destination stewardship, sustainability and value-based branding.

The pressure: Rising travel costs and inflation make it harder for destinations to compete on affordability alone. For relatively expensive destinations, competitiveness increasingly depends on demonstrating that the visitor experience justifies the cost. At the same time, Costa Rica faces the challenge of protecting the natural and cultural assets that underpin its tourism appeal while continuing to generate economic returns from the sector.

The response: Costa Rica has pursued a tourism model centred on sustainability, destination quality and visitor value rather than mass-market growth. It established its Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) programme to encourage tourism businesses to strengthen environmental and social performance, improve resource management and engage local communities. The CST standard has since been recognized by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), reinforcing Costa Rica’s international reputation as a sustainability-focused destination.⁴⁶ While international arrivals grew by only around 1% in 2025, average visitor spending increased from approximately $1,602 to $1,848 per trip,⁴⁷ a rise of around 15%, demonstrating how a value-oriented tourism model can increase visitor spending without relying on significant growth in arrivals.

Why it matters: Costa Rica demonstrates that destinations do not need to compete primarily on price to remain attractive. By investing in sustainability, destination quality and differentiated visitor experiences, it has built a tourism model that supports strong visitor spending despite relatively low price competitiveness. As travel costs rise globally and affordability becomes harder to maintain, the lesson for destinations is that long-term competitiveness depends on the value delivered to visitors rather than affordability alone.

Growth has exposed another challenge. As tourism expands, destinations face growing pressure to deliver and showcase community impacts and manage local resources. TTDI results show that T&T Demand Sustainability, measuring the extent to which tourism demand is distributed across locations and seasons and the pressures associated with visitor concentration, remains below pre-pandemic levels, while T&T Socioeconomic Impact has weakened. Maintaining tourism’s social licence to operate depends on ensuring growth remains compatible with local quality of life and continues to create economic and social value for residents, businesses and communities.

Managing growth is not only about protecting destinations from overcrowding. It is about ensuring that tourism growth creates local value, supports quality jobs, strengthens communities and maintains the environmental, cultural and social assets on which tourism depends. When tourism growth outpaces local capacity to capture and retain its benefits, the result can be rising living costs, congestion, pressure on public services and declining public support for tourism.

Tourism competes alongside residents and other sectors for housing, labour, public services, water and energy. Anti-tourism protests in Barcelona and the Balearic and Canary Islands in Spain in 2024 and 2025 illustrate how concerns about tourism’s impact on housing, congestion and local quality of life can translate into public opposition, even in commercially successful destinations.⁴⁸ Addressing this issue requires:

For governments and local authorities, this means using planning, regulation and investment to match tourism growth with local capacity and to maximize local economic benefit. For businesses and platforms, it means designing products, visitor experiences and marketing strategies that support local businesses, spread tourism activity appropriately and avoid overloading the same locations at the same times.

At the local level, technology can support these efforts. In the San Vigilio Dolomites in Italy, the “Giggo” virtual holiday assistant helps visitors plan trips that match real-time conditions, including weather, crowding and accessibility, encouraging dispersal across the valley and reducing pressure on the most popular trails and viewpoints.⁴⁹

Growth in visitor numbers is no longer a sufficient indicator of success. Many destinations are evaluating tourism through measures such as resident sentiment, visitor yield, environmental performance and the distribution of tourism across places and seasons. This approach is increasingly reflected in tourism policy, including the European Union’s 2026 strategic guidelines for a sustainable and competitive tourism sector, which emphasize resilience, sustainability and community well-being alongside economic growth.⁵⁰

Finally, effective communication with local communities is critical to maintaining tourism’s social licence to operate. The benefits generated by tourism are often dispersed across jobs, local supply chains, tax revenues, public services and infrastructure, making them less visible to residents than the pressures associated with visitor growth. Governments, destinations and businesses therefore need to communicate more clearly and transparently about how tourism creates value locally, where revenues are generated and reinvested, and how communities can benefit over time. For example, New York City has highlighted that visitor spending generated almost $7 billion in tax revenue in 2024, equivalent to approximately $2,000 in avoided taxes per household, helping make tourism’s contribution to public finances more tangible for residents.⁵¹ This communication is most credible when it is supported by measurable evidence and accompanied by meaningful community engagement, rather than relying on promotional messaging alone.

Case study: Türkiye – Managing growth through sustainability standards.

TTDI context: Türkiye faces significant tourism growth and concentration pressures. While the country continues to score lower for the T&T Demand Sustainability, T&T Socioeconomic Impact and Environmental Sustainability pillars, all three scores have improved since 2024. The strongest gains have been in the T&T Socioeconomic Impact pillar, which improved by 8.3%, the second-largest improvement globally. The T&T Demand Sustainability pillar improved by 5.1%, while the Environmental Sustainability pillar also recorded modest gains. Together, these trends suggest that efforts to better manage tourism growth and strengthen local benefits are beginning to gain traction.

The pressure: Rapid tourism growth can place severe strain on natural resources, infrastructure, communities and cultural assets, particularly when visitor flows are concentrated in a limited number of destinations. For countries such as Türkiye, maintaining public support for tourism increasingly depends on ensuring that growth is managed in ways that protect destination quality, strengthen local benefits and reduce pressure on communities and ecosystems.

The response: In 2022, Türkiye launched a national sustainable tourism programme in partnership with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), creating a common framework for accommodation providers to adopt internationally recognized sustainability standards. More than 2,000 accommodation facilities have achieved GSTC certification, with certification set to become mandatory nationwide by 2030. The programme is built around GSTC standards that include effective sustainability planning, reducing environmental impacts, protecting cultural heritage and, importantly, maximizing social and economic benefits for local communities. Through this programme, Türkiye is seeking to ensure tourism growth contributes more directly to local economies and destination well-being while reducing pressure on the assets and communities that support tourism.⁵²

Why it matters: Türkiye demonstrates that managing growth is not only about limiting visitor numbers. It is about ensuring that tourism continues to create positive outcomes for destinations and the communities that host it. Facing growing visitor pressure, Türkiye has sought to embed common sustainability standards across its tourism sector, including requirements related to local community benefits, cultural heritage and environmental management. For destinations facing similar growth pressures, the lesson is that social licence depends not only on growth itself but on ensuring that tourism growth strengthens local economic, social and environmental outcomes.

The TTDI shows that across the highest-performing destinations, success depends not only on attracting visitors but also on having the people, institutions and systems needed to deliver tourism consistently and at scale.

Workforce constraints are at the centre of this challenge. As one of the world’s largest employers, T&T’s ability to grow depends on attracting, developing and retaining the people needed to deliver visitor experiences. By 2035, demand for workers in T&T is projected to exceed supply by more than 43 million people – a 16% shortfall.⁵³ This will place increasing pressure on tourism businesses’ ability to meet demand and maintain service quality.

The challenge is becoming more complex than a simple shortage of workers. Many tourism businesses continue to report difficulties recruiting staff with the skills and experience required by the sector. Ageing populations and barriers to labour mobility are making recruitment and retention more difficult.⁵⁴ At the same time, AI and digital tools may help improve productivity, but they are viewed as tools to support workers rather than replace the human-centred experiences at the heart of T&T.⁵⁵

Strengthening delivery capacity therefore requires a focused response. It calls for:

Workforce capacity is the clearest immediate constraint, but it is not the only one. Tourism also depends on the businesses, institutions and coordination mechanisms that support service delivery. Many tourism economies depend on SMEs for diversity, local value and capacity. Fragmented responses across government, transport, destination management and industry can weaken the system as a whole, even where individual organizations perform well.

This requires governments, businesses and industry associations to align education, labour, tourism and SME policies – and to invest jointly in training, career pathways and collaborative responses to disruption. Destinations that can attract, retain and continually develop their workforce, support their service providers and coordinate action under strain will be better placed to maintain service quality, adapt to disruption and sustain long-term competitiveness.

Case study: Saudi Arabia – Building a tourism workforce as the sector grows.

TTDI context: Saudi Arabia has recorded the second-largest improvement in the Human Resources and Labour Market pillar globally since 2019, reflecting substantial progress in workforce development, education and labour market conditions. At the same time, the country has become one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism markets, supported by major investment in destinations, infrastructure and connectivity.

The pressure: As part of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has committed to expanding tourism rapidly.⁵⁶ Sustaining that growth requires a workforce with the skills, experience and leadership capabilities needed to deliver sophisticated tourism products and services. Without coordinated action, labour shortages, skills gaps and weak career pathways could become a major constraint on growth.

The response: The Ministry of Tourism’s Human Capability Development Program sets out a coordinated workforce strategy. This includes scholarship and training programmes for Saudi nationals, professional certification and leadership tracks, secondments and apprenticeships with international hospitality institutions, and targeted programmes to support tourism workers at every stage of their careers.⁵⁷ Tourism employment reached nearly 1.03 million jobs in 2025, while Saudi women accounted for approximately 47% of Saudi employees in tourism roles, up from 5% in 2018.⁵⁸

Why it matters: Saudi Arabia’s large-scale investment in tourism talent development, coupled with strong gains in workforce participation and employment, highlights the role that coordinated workforce strategies can play in supporting rapid tourism growth. For destinations facing similar workforce pressures, the lesson is that long-term competitiveness depends on fostering the people and capabilities needed to deliver growth.