The inside scoop

We chat to the president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council about the importance of travel, exciting innovations and why governments need to stop passing the buck

What is the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)?

The World Travel and Tourism Council represents the private sector businesses in travel and tourism – everything from the top hotels and airlines to airports, Google, Airbnb and B2B businesses, such as travel agents and online travel agencies. So we’re a very broad church representing the whole of the sector.

How important is travel to the global economy?

Travel and tourism employs one in ten people on this planet. In the UK or Europe, you might not quite appreciate that, but there are some parts of the world where travel and tourism can represent 80 per cent of the GDP. On a global scale it’s a massive economic powerhouse – it’s worth about US$9.3 trillion. Of every US$10 made on the planet, one dollar comes from travel and tourism.

What are some of the wider benefits of travel?

Travel is a really important force for good. I call it a soft power. We live in really challenging times and travel and tourism gets people to understand each other and breaks down bridges. There are times when I have arrived in a country with a suitcase packed with preconceptions, and actually when you get to know a culture, you see something very different. Aside from that, when we’re all working so hard, travel can give you a bit of headspace. So it’s really beneficial to wellness, peace and prosperity.

Has travel fully recovered from Covid-19 now?

Obviously our sector was devastated by the pandemic – lots of businesses went to the wall, lots of people lost their jobs. There are still some ongoing impacts, things like visas not getting issued globally so people can’t travel. The Chinese, for example, travelled a lot pre-Covid and it’s taken a long time for that to get going again. But, overall, I would say, not only is business and travel back, it’s booming.

How important is sustainability in the travel sector?

Travel and tourism is forecast to grow at double the rate of global GDP, and we want to make sure we can grow really sustainably. We’ve got some fantastic data and research about what our impact actually is with regards to things like water, plastic, greenhouse gas emissions. It’s really important because if you can’t count – you can’t control. The research has also revealed some really interesting things. As you would expect, most of our emissions come from transport, but while you would think this would be from airlines – actually 50 per cent of our emissions comes from ground transport. So that means we need to electrify our vehicles around the world, which is easily done.

What about aviation specifically?

With airlines, we really need to look at the technology we have available right now. The first is to invest in more efficient planes. The generation of planes today is very different from those 20 years ago. They’re lighter and the engines are more efficient. The other thing is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – but we are not making enough of it so it’s really expensive, which is not good. We’re telling governments that this isn’t the responsibility of airlines, it’s their responsibility. We also want to get governments to think sensibly. When you fly across Europe you zigzag because you have to go from one set of air traffic control to another. The Europeans started talking about something they called the ‘Single European Sky’ over 20 years ago, where you would be more or less able to fly in a straight line, but we’re still talking about it years later. They want to have a go at the private sector to fix things, but I say we’ve all got our role in this and they have to play their role.

In what ways is technology revolutionising the industry?

Technology is playing a really interesting part in the way we travel. We don’t want to replace the personal human experience, but I think where technology works is to take the hassle out of travel. For example, we should be able to just walk through airports without any kind of bits of paperwork, or use tech to manage the flow of people to some of the real hotspot sites in tourism destinations. Artificial intelligence is also going to change our sector, probably more on the operations side than customer-facing for the moment, but it’s already doing incredible things. Hotel groups such as Hilton and Iberostar have installed artificial intelligence rubbish bins in their kitchens, which allow you to actually measure what type of food is being thrown away – the weight and the cost. Iberostar has been able to reduce food waste by

28 per cent in 48 of its hotels as a result.

What are some of the most exciting developments at the moment?

There are some amazing projects coming up in the Red Sea area along the Saudi coastline. People don’t realise how massive Saudi Arabia is, it’s an enormous country that’s got mountains, snow, forests and desert – and there’s going to be some very exciting new opportunities along the Red Sea. I think it’s going to become the new Maldives.