OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2026

Chapter 2. Tourism policies, priorities and governance

Abstract

Governments are increasingly rethinking how tourism is managed and adopting more strategic approaches that seek to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes while strengthening competitiveness and resilience. This is accompanied by evolving governance arrangements, greater use of data and digital tools, and closer co-ordination across policy domains and levels of government. This chapter examines developments in tourism policy priorities, reforms and governance, drawing on a survey of OECD and partner countries and highlighting examples of country practices.

Tourism is a major driver of economic growth and plays a key role in stimulating economic activity, creating jobs, promoting regional development and supporting local communities. As demand continues to rise, its impacts on communities and the environment are becoming more pronounced, intensifying the need for more strategic tourism policy. Countries are increasingly shifting from growth‑led approaches towards managing tourism in ways that deliver long‑term, resilient economic prosperity. This shift reflects growing recognition that traditional models have produced uneven outcomes.

Tourism success is now being redefined with stronger emphasis on the social and environmental impacts, crisis preparedness and adaptive capacity. Many countries are renewing national tourism strategies to embed these priorities, even as performance diverges across destinations and pressures from rapid or unplanned growth re‑emerge alongside heightened geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

Governance is also evolving. While national frameworks remain stable, local and regional actors are playing a larger role in destination management, highlighting the need for close vertical co-ordination and community engagement. Better data and digital tools underpin these changes. There is growing evidence that countries are investing in more granular, integrated data and are increasingly exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support evidence‑based decision making. However, adoption levels remain uneven, and many initiatives are still emerging.

This chapter examines how tourism policies and priorities are evolving as governments seek to address long‑standing challenges while strengthening the sector’s capacity to navigate uncertainty and positioning the sector for a more competitive, sustainable, and resilient future.

Strengthening governance for improved tourism management

The tourism sector is in the process of great change, emerging strongly from consecutive crises including health events, geopolitical tensions, and natural disasters. The sector is also navigating shifting policy priorities as countries move away from recovery strategies and volume-based growth targets, towards more responsive, digital and balanced tourism models that enrich local communities and protect the environment, while growing the economy overall. Linked with this, strategies increasingly seek to integrate tourism policy with broader economic, local and regional development plans and policy agendas.

Rethinking tourism governance is increasingly necessary as policymaking becomes more complex, interconnected and dynamic. The accelerating pace of change requires governance models that are more agile, integrated and capable of addressing cross‑cutting challenges. Action at the destination level has a particularly important role to play in driving momentum for change, supported by an overarching national vision that is responsive to local needs and priorities, and anchored in broad stakeholder engagement. To deliver on these ambitions, more co‑ordinated, adaptive governance models and management structures are needed, coupled with adequate institutional capacity at all levels of government to plan, implement and monitor effective tourism policy and destination management.

Designing strategies to support shifting priorities and maximise tourism value

Tourism strategies are evolving to reflect changing dynamics and local perceptions of tourism, with a greater emphasis on maintaining economic value while addressing the environment and community impacts, including by promoting a more balanced spread of tourism activity across regions and seasons. This is reflected across OECD countries, where many national tourism strategies have been recently updated or are currently being developed or revised, including in Austria, Chile, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Launched in 2025, Spain’s Strategy for Tourism 2030 redefines tourism success as that which benefits residents, workers and visitors alike, preserves identity, ensures well-being and promotes sustainability. The Strategy is based on the foundational principles that people are at the centre of tourism, and that economic, social and environmental sustainability are interdependent. Similarly, Portugal’s Tourism Strategy 2035 will seek to align tourism growth with territorial cohesion, community well-being, and environmental responsibility, while calling for a more agile, innovative, and regenerative model of sectoral governance and value creation.

Box 2.1. Driving tourism action with targeted tourism strategies and action plans

Austria: The national tourism strategy “Vision T” outlines tourism policy through 2035 and focuses on five key areas: economic strength and resilience, labour market and skilled workers, innovation and digitalisation, resources and responsibility, as well as added value and participation. It is complemented by action plans that define concrete measures and actions.

Chile: The National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism 2035 is complemented by several targeted strategies, including the Disaster Risk Management Plan for the Tourism Sub-sector, the Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Tourism Sector in Chile, and programmes to support social tourism.

Estonia: The Long-Term Outlook for Estonian Tourism 2025-2035 is supported by the Sustainable Tourism Action Plan to guide the transition toward a more sustainable tourism model. It aims to ensure long-term environmental, social, and economic sustainability in tourism by implementing targeted policy recommendations through co-ordinated actions by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and Visit Estonia.

Hungary: The National Tourism Strategy 2030 is complemented by the Active Tourism Development Strategy 2030, which aims to increase the participation rate and frequency of active tourism and recreational activities among Hungary’s population. It provides a framework for co-ordinating a wide range of state and local government initiatives, as well as private investments, to mobilise active tourism development and to support a healthier and more environmentally conscious mindset in Hungary.

Ireland: A New Era for Irish Tourism: The National Tourism Policy Statement is supported by several strategies, including Business Events 2030, which aims to promote Ireland as a premier global destination for meetings, incentives and conferences travel. It focuses on attracting high-value business events, fostering sustainable development, creating long-term careers, and promoting regional tourism.

Indonesia: The National Tourism Strategic Plan 2025-2029 is supported by the Tourism Sector Decarbonisation Roadmap, which supports the transition towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient tourism sector and the Tourism 5.0 Framework, which promotes the use of digital technologies, data analytics, and AI to enhance the entire visitor journey.

Portugal: The Tourism Strategy 2035 will be complemented by the Climate Agenda for Tourism 2025-2030, designed as an action plan focused on decarbonising and building the sector's resilience.

Switzerland: The Tourism Strategy of the Swiss Confederation is supported by the Swiss Federal Council’s Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change, which aims to prepare the country for climate change impacts by minimising risks and strengthening resilience across society, the economy, and the environment.

Thailand: The third National Tourism Development Plan 2023-2027 is complemented by the Tourism Master Plan under the 20-Year National Strategy, which aims to use the tourism sector as a strategic tool to reduce inequality in Thai society. It focuses on high-value tourism, while at the same time integrating other high-potential service sectors to avoid over-reliance on a single tourism dimension.

Japan’s Tourism Nation Promotion Basic Plan launched earlier this year is structured around three key pillars: balancing inbound tourism with the needs of local residents, promoting domestic and outbound tourism, and building resilient tourism destinations and a resilient tourism sector. The Plan sets out key directions to develop sustainable tourism, increase consumer spending, promote tourism in regional areas, strengthen transportation networks and urban development through tourism, and leverage new technologies.

At European level, the European Union’s first Sustainable Tourism Strategy, which will be launched in 2026, aims to support a competitive, sustainable, and community-based tourism model. The Strategy will shift the focus away from tourism volume to value, prioritising support for tourism destinations to balance tourism flows, empower tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and build the skills of the sector, and create better data and indicators for evidence-based policymaking.

While national tourism strategies continue to provide overarching frameworks for the sector, countries are increasingly complementing them with sub-strategies and action plans to better target policy outcomes and engage stakeholders. Multi-phase action plans in particular help to translate high-level policy priorities into more practical, targeted and action-oriented measures, often tailored to specific authorities. The development of these plans typically involves participatory processes and broad consultation to reflect the needs of various stakeholders. Although such processes can extend development timelines, they tend to foster stronger public-private co-operation and result in more cohesive and co-ordinated implementation. In parallel, dedicated sub-strategies in areas such as adaptation, digitalisation and accessibility further support targeted policy delivery, particularly where co-ordination across multiple levels of government, agencies, and the private sector is required (Box 2.1).

Co-ordinating action across all levels for tourism policy design and implementation

Horizontal co‑ordination across policy domains remains important for tourism development, reflecting the sector’s strong interdependencies with domains such as transport, housing, labour markets, environmental management, digitalisation and regional development. For example, a strategic priority of Canada’s Federal Tourism Growth Strategy is to improve co-ordination to support a whole-of-government approach to tourism. A Ministerial Tourism Council engages ministers whose mandates and departments include essential policy and programme instruments that impact tourism, such as employment and skills, transportation, border services, and housing.

Effective tourism policy implementation also requires input and participation of wider stakeholders, including the private sector. Many countries continue to develop effective mechanisms and approaches to maintain an active and consistent voice for the private sector in government fora as well as ensuring the private sector is engaged and plays its part implementing actions and plans to deliver on a common vision for tourism. However, this can be challenging due to the fragmented nature of the sector. Tourism industry associations can provide opportunities for the private sector to combine resources to tackle issues through industry-led initiatives, as well as to amplify common concerns or challenges to national tourism authorities (OECD, 2024[1]).

Many countries are actively leveraging established co-ordination mechanisms to engage across government and with the private sector to monitor and respond to the tourism impact of the conflict in the Middle East, building on the lessons from response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other shocks on the importance of co-ordinated communication, risk assessment and data sharing. For example, Greece and Türkiye are working closely with airlines and tour operators to track demand shifts, adapt market diversification strategies and provide (near) real time travel guidance.

At the same time, countries are strengthening consultation approaches to shape longer-term policy, using various mechanisms to involve the private sector and other stakeholders in the design and delivery of national tourism strategies. In the United States, the private sector is closely engaged in developing the new national tourism strategy. More broadly, tourism councils, taskforces and similar bodies are being used to sustain structured dialogue and align action among stakeholders. For instance, Lithuania's Tourism Council which includes tourism-related ministries and industry associations advises the Ministry of Economy, while in Chile the Undersecretariat for Tourism convenes a range of public-private actors including municipalities, industry associations, academia, communities and civil society to develop and implement tourism plans and programmes. These approaches help ensure that policy responses are timely, evidence-based and grounded in sector realities.

National governments are placing greater emphasis on strengthen local and regional destination management, which requires more effective multi-level governance and closer alignment across tourism authorities. While policy development and co-ordination often remain centralised, tourism activities are is inherently place-based and dispersed across different destinations, necessitating tailored strategies that reflect the specific characteristics and development priorities of individual destinations. Destination planning has evolved beyond the traditional marketing focus towards a broader emphasis on development and management, often embedded into broader regional economic development strategies. Establishing formal mechanisms to link national and sub-national actions, such as shared frameworks, guidelines and co-ordination platforms, can help ensure coherence and strengthen overall efforts. For example, an OECD review of Italy’s tourism governance highlighted the need for clearer national guidelines to support regions and destination management organisations (DMOs), promoting greater alignment, quality standards and strategic harmonisation across destinations (OECD, 2025[2]).

Establishing permanent forums or holding regular co-ordination meetings between national and regional authorities can further support the development and implementation of such guidance. In Hungary, work is underway to establish a new network of destination management services to enhance communication between local and central levels and within destinations, fostering a more destination-based approach to product development and market entry. Similarly, Bulgaria is strengthening co-ordination with regional administrations to improve the implementation of regional tourism development strategies.

Some countries are taking a more decentralised approach to tourism governance. While national governments are setting the long-term strategic goals for the sector, destinations are playing a greater role to achieve them. In Chile, decentralisation is a priority under the National Strategy for Sustainable Tourism 2035. Work is underway to decentralise the National Tourism Service, transferring some powers that are relevant at the territorial level. The objective is to improve the application of these powers by having them implemented by the respective regional government.

Even without formal decentralisation strategies, many countries are looking to co-ordinate local tourism development and management across all destinations, ensuring consistency and linking national and sub-national actions. In some countries, this has resulted in more formalised DMO systems, with defined spatial boundaries, roles and responsibilities. For example, Greece is incentivising the use of an established governance framework in Destination Management and Marketing Organisations to drive optimal destination management, supported by the Ministry of Tourism. In the United Kingdom, nationally supported Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) were created in 2022, with the aim to transform the destination management landscape, attracting investment, and supporting and growing local visitor economies. By the end of 2025, 37 LVEPS were accredited across England, covering a broad mix of urban, rural and coastal destinations, with further LVEPs in development. LVEP performance is monitored locally through delivery plans and nationally through evaluation by VisitEngland.

Some national governments are working with destinations to implement tailored destination plans country wide. In Ireland, Destination Experience Development Plans are developed collaboratively with stakeholders, including local authorities. These five-year strategies aim to grow tourism in a specific area by enhancing visitor experiences and maximising the potential of tourism development projects. In Croatia, the Tourism Act, which entered into force in 2024, mandates the preparation of four-year Destination Management Plans at local and regional levels which align with national priorities. It also requires the establishment of standardised sustainability indicators addressing economic, environmental, and social impacts. The Act empowers local authorities to define their destination identity and manage tourism growth based on local carrying capacities. Croatia also provides detailed guidelines, templates, and support services to ensure consistent implementation.

Czechia has revised its tourism governance system under the Action Plan 2024-2025, including the revision and update of the national categorisation of DMOs, strengthening multi-source financing, providing methodological support for destination management, and improving horizontal and vertical co-ordination. The local and regional tourism management systems and tourism infrastructure are supported through subsidies, co-financed by regional governments. Czechia is creating tourism development strategies for all 14 regions, which align with national objectives while addressing specific regional contexts. Further development of categorisation and certification of DMOs is expected to continue in the current Action Plan 2026-2027.

Building the capacity and resources to support strong tourism governance

As the roles and responsibilities associated with tourism management continue to evolve and expand, there is a growing need for enhanced skills, institutional capacity, and financial resources across all levels of governance. However, human and financial capacity constraints remain a challenge, within national tourism administrations and at destination level. In this context, national governments have an important role to play in strengthening system-wide capabilities, supporting destinations to develop these new competences, and ensuring that adequate resources and expertise are in place to deliver increasingly complex tourism policies (OECD, 2025[3]).

Targeted training and capacity-building programmes can empower stakeholders at all levels, equipping local governments and DMOs with the knowledge and expertise needed to respond to evolving industry trends and manage tourism more effectively. Priority areas include strategic destination planning, balanced tourism development, digital capabilities and crisis preparedness. In parallel, investments in analytical tools and data systems can further enhance these efforts. For example, Colombia’s Territorial Tourism Development Level Platform is a methodological tool that determines a destination's current tourism development level and identifies gaps, progress, institutional capacities, territorial conditions, and critical factors influencing performance. This tool enables comparative analysis among municipalities, tourism progress tracking, and the prioritisation of strategic actions, thereby strengthening planning, inter-institutional co-ordination, and evidence-based decision making. Scaling such approaches can help governments build more resilient, responsive, and data-driven tourism systems.

Countries are also strengthening strategic planning and co-ordination mechanisms at national level to ensure that available resources are aligned around shared priorities. Whole‑of‑government strategies and co-ordination play a role in improving coherence, avoiding duplication and enhancing the impact of limited resources. Finally, financing and investment at national level remain important for the resourcing of tourism governance and management. This is discussed in more detail at the end of the chapter.

Harnessing data for informed tourism decision making

Governments at all levels need robust, timely and relevant data to better understand the impacts of tourism on economies, destinations and local communities, to in turn design targeted and concrete actions, and manage the trade-offs to achieve better outcomes (OECD, 2024[1]). The well-documented shortcomings of existing tourism data include a lack of granularity, timeliness, comparability and availability. Countries are taking steps to make improvements in these areas.

The need for timely, granular data to support a strong evidence-base for tourism policymaking has been emphasised by recent shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently the conflict in the Middle East. This has driven progress and momentum on tourism data issues. Frameworks aligning strategies for tourism data and policymaking at the national level highlight the increased emphasis on data-based decision making. For example, France is developing a Tourism Data Roadmap to support the circulation and valorisation of tourism data in the coming years, both to inform public policy and to help stakeholders develop new use cases.

Countries continue efforts to implement the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) to accurately measure the direct contribution of tourism to the economy. For example, recent OECD work supported the TSA implementation in Greece (OECD, 2025[4]) and Malta (OECD, 2025[5]). Efforts also focus on improving the underlying data systems by enhancing data collection methods, timeliness, granularity, and accuracy, including through the use of alternative data sources, while strengthening the communication of TSA results. At European level, Eurostat now regularly collects and disseminates TSA data (European Commission, 2026[6]). There is a growing interest in measuring tourism’s indirect economic impacts across the supply chain, reflecting demand for inputs from multiple sectors. Countries are also working to link economic and environmental measurement by integrating the TSA with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. This requires input-output models to trace tourism’s broader economic and environmental impacts.

Increasing decentralisation of decision making has also heightened the need for reliable regional and local tourism datal. This has renewed efforts to develop regional TSAs in some countries. For example, Sweden adopted a big data based methodology to measure the economic impact of tourism at regional and municipal level. Croatia mandated destination-level data collection to prepare the TSA under its Tourism Act. The United States released its first report since 1997 measuring the economic impact of overseas visitors across US states and territories, including their spending and contribution to jobs (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2026[7]).

Digitalisation is opening new data opportunities and challenges for tourism measurement. Opportunities include potential to innovate, collect and share more timely and granular data to support evidence-based decisions, but challenges related to skills, costs, data quality and privacy remain. Alternative and real‑time data solutions, such as accommodation trackers or digital booking data, can provide policy‑relevant insights without increasing reporting burden on tourism businesses. Using alternative data to strengthen and complement official tourism statistics and improve data sharing for decision making is an area of ongoing work, as highlighted in the OECD Tourism Paper ‘Using alternative data sources and tools to measure and monitor tourism’ (OECD, 2025[8]).

Many countries are taking steps to incorporate environmental and social objectives into national tourism strategies, including community acceptance (e.g. Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Spain), and the carbon footprint of tourism (e.g. Canada, Chile, Croatia, Ireland, Norway), supported by new data initiatives to track progress. However, further work is needed to standardise these measures to improve consistency and comparability within and between countries.

Internationally, the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST) provides a common foundation for definitions and data structures (UN Tourism, 2024[9]). Building on this, the OECD Tourism Committee has developed a core set of 12 indicators and 23 metrics to support sustainability measurement across key policy areas. This work draws on country-specific work in Greece, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain as well as existing international measurement frameworks and initiatives. Efforts are now focused on operationalising these indicators and identifying a harmonised core set of internationally comparable indicators in collaboration with the European Commission and UN Tourism. The EU Tourism Dashboard also continues to monitor the tourism transition (European Commission, 2025[10]).

An important challenge remains in how tourism data and statistics are used to inform decision making. For example, while the TSA provides a robust measure of tourism’s direct economic contribution, its impact is limited if results are not clearly communicated to policymakers and stakeholders. Strengthening data-sharing mechanisms can help bridge the gap between data producers and users, supporting informed decisions at both national and sub-national levels.

Improving the integration and use of tourism data is increasingly a priority across all levels of government. Tourism data hubs and information systems can help to bridge information and producer-user gaps (OECD/European Union, 2025[11]) and provide a stable foundation to support the use of AI. For example, Poland’s Tourism+ data portal integrates data from surveys, official statistics and booking platforms. Linked to the national System of Public Registers on Tourism, the platform has built-in algorithms to forecast changes in the use of accommodation establishments, monitor trends and help to plan tourism policy effectively at different administrative levels. Sweden launched a national collaboration project to establish a standardised Application Programming Interface (API) for the tourism sector. The initiative makes it possible to collect, structure and distribute tourism data in a uniform way, ensuring that businesses, regions, and international platforms can access reliable information at a lower cost and with higher quality, supporting innovation, smarter services and a stronger international reach. Chile has standardised and integrated official data sources to create MapaTurismo, an open-source tourism information system across multiple geographic levels which is accessible to local authorities and the general public (Box 2.2).

Box 2.2. Harnessing official data through tourism information systems in Chile

Through the development and implementation of tourism policies in the post-COVID period, it became clear that official tourism data in Chile was fragmented, highly aggregated and not sufficiently timely. As a result, it was difficult to develop evidence-based policies for the sector. To address these challenges, Chile integrated official data sets into a platform interface accessible to local authorities and the general public. Work was carried out to harmonise geographies and territorial hierarchies (country, region, commune), automate quality controls, comply with data protection regulations, and at the same time, be lightweight and cost-efficient.

MapaTurismo Chile was officially launched in March 2026 and provides a multi-level tourism information platform that consolidates official sources and allows for the visualisation, consultation, and reporting of key tourism indicators, including visitor flows, tourism supply, economic impacts, and territorial level statistics. The platform links dispersed official data from multiple sources through open standards using low-load cloud services and maintains an emphasis on usability. This system relies on automated collection, including web-scraping where APIs are not available, and has automated data validation checks to flag inconsistencies and anomalies before publication. Data is protected by publishing only aggregated and anonymised outputs.

The platform includes graphical, reader, and timeline modes of use, and generates downloadable reports to support planning, management, and monitoring at different levels of government. The platform remains relatively cost-efficient as it is a self-developed solution with a lightweight architecture.

Italy’s Tourism Digital Hub is designed to work as a bridge between tourists and operators. It was developed to overcome existing structural deficiencies and establish a single, official national digital ecosystem for tourism. The goal is to provide an institutional tool capable of interacting with all stakeholders and offer a reliable source of information to standardise data, centralise information and boost competitiveness. Currently under development, Malta’s AI in Tourism Platform will use AI to analyse diverse tourism-related data to gain insights into tourist behaviour and improve decision making. The platform will offer real-time recommendations to tourists and support government policymaking, and it will include an Open Data Platform to enhance transparency. Montenegro’s new Tourist Information System will provide a platform to enable automatic monitoring, better records and data transparency, the automation and acceleration of processes, reduction of administrative burden, and better identification of informal tourism activities. Montenegro has allocated budget for the Tourist Information System’s development, testing, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and maintenance.

Data spaces can be effective tools to share data, when well-structured and managed. The European Commission is developing the European Tourism Data Space to support the tourism sector to exchange data, and improve decision making, operations and the visitor experience by promoting more personalised and efficient tourism services. Ongoing initiatives support the continued evolution of the Data Space, allowing real-time data sharing that benefits SMEs and larger tourism operators alike. Specified collaborative networks were introduced to ensure standardised, secure, data exchange across sectors, and transport and mobility data were integrated to create a unified tourism data ecosystem.

Deploying new technologies to boost tourism innovation

Rapid technological change and digital adoption is fundamentally reshaping tourism. OECD Tourism Committee work for the G7 and APEC highlights the transformative role of AI in particular as a key driver of innovation, operational efficiency and personalised services, while also offering significant potential to help address pressing challenges in the sector (OECD, 2024[12]; OECD, 2026, forthcoming[13]). AI applications are being deployed, with more and more destinations and businesses looking to use these technologies to enhance the visitor experience through more interactive and personalised experiences, streamlined travel processes, strengthened market intelligence and data-driven decision making.

The G7/OECD Policy Paper on Artificial Intelligence and Tourism marked the first sector‑specific contribution to global AI policy discussions, highlighting opportunities and challenges for tourism stakeholders (OECD, 2024[12]). Since its endorsement by G7 Tourism Ministers in November 2024, the focus of the global debate has shifted from AI’s potential towards practical implementation challenges and risks, including questions around deployment and the reliability of AI‑generated content, a shift also reflected in the APEC and G20 tourism agendas under Korea’s 2025 APEC host year and South Africa’s 2025 Presidency (OECD, 2026, forthcoming[13])

AI has implications for tourism marketing and product development, opening up opportunities to engage audiences and match visitor expectations more precisely, including through AI-driven insights. Integrating AI into the marketing ecosystem provides opportunities to modernise communication and create more personalised, efficient, and engaging interactions with travellers. However, it also poses a growing challenge for destinations and tourism businesses to ensure that their information is accurately captured, visible and prioritised within AI-powered applications and platforms that travellers increasingly rely on for trip planning.

Lithuania launched an AI-powered travel assistant on the Lithuania Travel website. The tool supports visitors with personalised recommendations, from top attractions and hidden gems to cultural etiquette, seasonal highlights, and local experiences. Similarly, Indonesia is integrating AI into the indonesia.travel platform as part of its Tourism 5.0 strategy, to generate personalised travel plan recommendations, provide rapid access to information while offering a richer, more responsive, and human-centric user experience, supporting data-driven decision making to optimise tourism destinations and visitor experiences. In Korea, the Korea Guseok Guseok (“Every corner of Korea”) domestic travel information platform uses AI to innovate the entire travel process from travel exploration to dissemination of information (Box 2.3).

Emerging technologies are also helping to engage tourists with cultural heritage destinations and attractions by creating immersive experiences that preserve authenticity while making traditions accessible and meaningful to digital-native travellers (World Economic Forum, 2025[14]). The “AI Local Guides” programme in Switzerland brought together major destinations like Basel, Graubünden, Lucerne, and Zurich to develop interactive digital tour guides using AI. The AI-powered guides personalise experiences in real-time, combining local knowledge, historical anecdotes and current data. The digital guides can be made available to destinations via the Joaia app, integrated into their own applications via an API, or as a web plugin directly on websites. This flexibility allows destinations of all sizes to create and offer digital travel companions without great financial outlay.

Box 2.3. Innovating the domestic tourism process with AI in Korea

The expansion of generative AI has driven the need for continued digital transformation, keeping up with the digital demands for tourists and ensuring that tourism businesses are not left behind. The Korea Guseok Guseok domestic travel information platform uses AI to innovate the entire travel process. This includes:

• Travel exploration: Providing an AI summary of travel articles and comments to provide key information at a glance.

• Recommendations and planning: Operating travel destination and travel itinerary recommendation services tailored to the user’s needs and preferences.

• Refinement: Enhancing recommendation accuracy through advanced management of data from user activities

• Dissemination: Creating timely and trustworthy travel content based on big data from navigation systems, social media and the travel industry.

The ‘AI Kokkok Travel Recommendation Service’ provided by the Korea Tourism Organisation incorporates multiple safeguards to ensure algorithmic transparency and fairness, minimising both search and selection bias in its recommendation process. To eliminate search bias, content that users have recently viewed or searched is excluded from the recommendation dataset. In addition, the system operates cross-referenced recommendation models and datasets for each category through A/B testing, and monitoring of consumption and engagement rates, and adjusts content exposure by location based on these metrics. It also uses cluster-based matrix computations to provide recommendations that are specifically matched to each user segment.

In terms of big data analyses, the Korea Tourism Organisation has enhanced guidelines for data generation, including data derived from Points of Interest and Internet devices, to prevent potential bias related to age or gender. For data sources such as news outlets, online portals, Instagram, and X (formally Twitter), the analysis focuses on indirect trend indicators such as frequency of mentions and sentiment analysis, rather than highlighting specific destinations.

The emergence of these models poses the risk of demand being shaped by platforms and AI, where these technologies effectively pick ‘winner’ attractions or destinations. In a strategic foresight exercise, it was found that in all scenarios, digital platforms, search algorithms, and viral imagery strongly shape demand, often reinforcing volume- and price-driven, convenience-first travel. Alternative or value-driven products can struggle to gain online visibility, keeping consumer patterns locked in place despite changing traveller demand (European Travel Commission, 2025[15]).

Meaningful AI adoption requires more than just the deployment of tools. It involves strategic alignment, organisational readiness and robust data infrastructure and consumer protection measures. Governments can play a key role in overcoming systemic barriers, facilitating collaboration, and ensuring that AI serves public policy objectives such as balanced tourism development, environmental conservation and support for SMEs and smaller destinations. AI is already delivering tangible benefits across a wide range of tourism applications, including enhanced visitor experiences, strengthening accessibility and audience engagement, improving market intelligence and data use, optimising tourism operations and resource use, and supporting more effective strategic management (OECD, 2026, forthcoming[13]). However, a growing gap persists, particularly for SMEs, due to limited technical capacity and infrastructure, and fragmented data ecosystems. Addressing this disparity will be essential to ensure the benefits of AI are widely shared across the tourism sector (OECD, 2025[16]).

Persistent gaps in digital capabilities highlight the ongoing role for governments in supporting the tourism sector’s digital transition. Increasingly, initiatives are being implemented to promote the uptake of digital tools and AI by tourism businesses and destinations. Colombia’s "Turismo 4.0 for All" Strategy, for example, aims to accelerate the digital transformation and foster innovation across the sector through capacity building, technological solutions, and the development of new business models. The Strategy brings together projects, partnerships, and digital tools to enhance traceability, interoperability and data analytics, while encouraging participation and co-creation by communities, local authorities, tourism providers, entrepreneurs, and strategic partners. To date, 630 participants have been trained in digital competencies.

The Netherlands Digital Offensive for Tourism programme aims to strengthen the sector's digital foundation, enhancing resilience and enabling businesses to respond more effectively to emerging digital developments. Targeted at small tourism entrepreneurs, the programme combines smart AI technology with personal support. Entrepreneurs are offered a free QuickScan providing insights into their ‘digital fitness’, based upon which they can choose personal coaching or access to an online learning environment. Key areas of focus include as online visibility, booking systems, customer data, digital security, and marketing. In Estonia, the Tourism Software Integration and Connectivity Support Initiative promotes digitalisation and automation of tourism service providers’ workflows. Through this funding mechanism businesses can adopt new resource management software and integrate it with systems such as point-of-sale and accounting tools, thereby improving operational efficiency and data quality. Training, counselling and other services to enhance digitalisation are offered to the sector by Visit Estonia and regional DMOs.

Start-ups play a relevant and increasingly important role in tourism as engines of innovation and catalysts for digital transformation. This role is particularly significant given that the tourism sector is predominantly composed of SMEs, which are often family-run, micro in size, and operate seasonally. Advancing new business models in this context requires start-ups to have access to digital tools, sector-specific data, and open platforms to foster innovation and scaling. As a result, many tourism incubator and accelerator programmes place a strong emphasis on digital transformation, with a focus on traveltech, data-driven innovation, and smart solutions to modernise tourism operations (OECD, 2026, forthcoming[17]).

France’s Tourisme Tech initiative exemplifies this trend by supporting travel tech startups through a year-long programme that combines open innovation, mentoring, and promotion, while facilitating connections with major corporate and investment partners to accelerate the sector’s digital transformation. At the same time, closer co-operation between tourism and other sectors, particularly technology, is becoming increasingly important. The integration of advanced solutions such as AI, blockchain, and data-driven tools requires bridging the gap between technology developers and traditional tourism SMEs, which often have limited absorptive capacity. For example, Costa Rica’s Conect Tourism initiative is actively fostering matchmaking between tourism enterprises and technology providers through a dedicated platform.

Improving the enabling environment for tourism businesses

SMEs dominate the tourism sector and contribute significantly to job creation and economic growth (OECD, 2025[18]). However, the complex and fragmented nature of the sector can make establishing a supportive enabling environment for tourism businesses and in particular tourism SMEs difficult. Ensuring new and existing businesses can readily enter, operate and thrive in the sector is central to improving productivity and competitiveness while working towards the long-term goals set out in many tourism strategies.

Reducing the administrative and regulatory burden can help to support the viability of tourism businesses. Countries are now actively reviewing their regulatory frameworks and looking to streamline reporting requirements. Switzerland will introduce a digital guest registration system for the accommodation sector via EasyGov aiming to modernise the check-in process, eliminate paper forms, and reduce administrative workload for businesses. Estonia is reducing state-level intervention for Estonian accommodation providers, travel companies, and tourist information centres. Businesses will no longer be required to notify the Labour Inspectorate about the designated workplace environment specialist or have micro-enterprises submit a workplace risk assessment to the Labour Inspectorate’s database.

Germany is pursuing options to reduce documentation requirements for tourism enterprises and instead focus on a risk-oriented approach with increased sanctions for infringements. It will expand the ‘reality check tool’ and implement it across various areas of the sector. This involves a practical check, working with entrepreneurs and relevant enforcement authorities, to examine processes from start to finish, analyse bureaucratic obstacles, and develop practical solutions. Latvia has streamlined requirements to reduce both the volume and frequency of reporting. These ongoing actions aim to create a more efficient regulatory environment, enabling tourism businesses to focus on service quality, innovation, and long-term growth. Sweden recently replaced the need for a hotel permit when starting or taking over a hotel business with an easier application procedure. It is also exploring opportunities to reduce the regulatory burden and associated costs for businesses to increase tourism growth, jobs and tax revenues.

SMEs face a restrictive financing environment, including in the tourism sector. Economic uncertainty and relatively high borrowing costs continue to contribute to sluggish SME credit growth, weighing on liquidity and investments, with implications for competitiveness (OECD, 2026[19]). Tourism SMEs and entrepreneurs face particular challenges. Credit conditions are tighter than for SMEs on average, which already face less favourable terms than larger firms. This reflects market perceptions of tourism businesses as more risky than other firms, and lack of collateral required to guarantee the finance need (OECD, 2017[20]). Support for entrepreneurs and SMEs can bring new opportunities to the tourism sector as it adapts to new policy priorities and changing technologies.

A recent OECD review of the enabling environment for micro and small tourism enterprises in Greece identified access to finance was one of six key dimensions with the potential to act as drivers (or barriers) to starting, maintaining or expanding business operations (OECD, 2025[21]). Examples of government support include the Revolving Fund for Enterprises to Support Tourism in Italy, which provides non-repayable grants and subsidised loans to improve tourism services and facilities and promote upgrades, digitalisation, sustainability and resilience for projects valued between EUR 500 000 and EUR 10 million. The Tourism Growth Programme in Canada funds projects that provide added value to existing activities in the tourism sector, helping to leverage tourism opportunities in communities, including those in rural and remote areas, while focusing on business and economic growth. In Hungary, the Tourism Bank was established in 2025 to provide favourable loan schemes to tourism enterprises, enabling them to expand, modernise, and improve the quality of their services.

In recent years, incubators and accelerators have been increasingly recognised as tools to improve the effectiveness and availability of entrepreneurship support and stimulate innovation. The OECD International Compendium of Entrepreneurship Policies identifies incubation and acceleration as one of three main policy interventions to foster entrepreneurship (OECD, 2020[22]). Tourism-specific incubation and acceleration is particularly relevant given tourism’s fragmented value chains, strong seasonality, local embeddedness and cross-cutting regulatory and market conditions. There is a growing but still selective presence of tourism-specific incubators, often with a strong digital transformation focus (Box 2.4). Although the tourism innovation landscape has matured considerably in recent years, there is a need for more coherent, long-term and problem-driven incubation and acceleration that can better connect programmes, address thematic blind spots and strengthen the sector’s capacity to manage deeper transformation (OECD, 2026, forthcoming[17]).

Box 2.4. Fast-evolving support landscape of tourism incubators and accelerators

The mapping of around 70 tourism incubators and accelerators across OECD countries and EU Member States reveals a multiple and fast-evolving support landscape, including the following highlights:

• Start-up support spans European-level schemes, national initiatives that translate tourism strategies into practice, and local programmes that address place-based challenges and provide access to core business services.

• Across different programme models, there is a clear alignment with policy priorities, most notably digitalisation and sustainability, often reflected in thematic focus, partnerships and the types of services offered.

• Most tourism initiatives prioritise short, early-stage interventions (e.g. challenges, competitions and bootcamps), while a smaller set of longer programmes supports sustained development and market traction over time.

• Public-private co-operation is a recurring element, including structured matchmaking with established firms within and beyond tourism, especially with the tech sector.

Source: (OECD, 2026, forthcoming[17])

Portugal is actively working to strengthen the ecosystem supporting tourism SMEs, through a combination of public and private initiatives. Business capacity-building and incubation programmes offer technical training, mentoring, and access to strategic tools to help small enterprises professionalise and scale operations. Initiatives are also being launched to encourage the aggregation of micro-enterprises into collaborative networks and clusters, especially in territories where fragmentation has hindered growth and diversification. Denmark plans to continue development of the Hub for Innovation in Tourism, a national initiative, which aims to strengthen the tourism sector and enhance competitiveness by connecting startups with established tourism operators. First developed in 2021, the Hub helps entrepreneurs test, develop, and market their solutions in the dynamic landscape of tourism.

In Peru, a public innovation laboratory known as the MINCETUR Lab has designed and implemented a new modality within its national programme Turismo Emprende to address the idea creation and business model design phase in the entrepreneurship cycle. This new approach incorporates intensive training, early-stage validation, and the application of emerging technologies into the creation of tourism ventures. It aims to build entrepreneurial capacity from the ground up, ensuring that projects are more robust, market-aligned, and grounded in sustainability and innovation from the start. France Tourism Tech supports around ten start-ups annually to develop solutions based on innovative technologies applied to tourism, such as AI, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), immersive reality, blockchain and cryptography, cybersecurity, and new mobility. The start-ups receive support from around 60 public and private partners, including major corporations, investors and institutional stakeholders in the early stage of their business development.

Tourism can provide opportunities for populations in rural and remote areas if adequate infrastructure and services are available to attract and cater to tourists. This can help address some of the structural challenges faced by populations in these areas, such as fewer economic opportunities and limited access to basic services compared to urban areas. Austria is providing funding to assist the development of business plans addressing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a recent or impending succession processes for SMEs. The goal is to prevent small, often family-led hotels, restaurants and other tourism businesses in rural areas from closing when the current owner or operator retires. This subsidy aims to make it more attractive for potential successors, often the children of the current owners, to continue the business.

A vibrant tourism economy needs to have access to the skills and workforce to provide a quality and competitive tourism offer. AI and the accelerating pace of digitalisation are changing the nature of work and the skills needed within tourism. The private sector has a lead role in addressing these issues, by implementing measures to change those factors within its control, while working closely with government, which creates the framework conditions (OECD, 2024[1]). Current policies to address tourism workforce issues occur across three key areas:

• Promoting the tourism sector as an employer: better promoting the sector as a career pathway to young people either in schools or through promotional campaigns.

• Improving the skills of tourism workers: upskilling and reskilling the tourism workforce with free and subsidised training, including through new training portals, and the modernising of tourism education, to better meet the needs of tourism businesses.

• Enabling access to international workers: adapting immigration policies to increase the limits for tourism workers, where considered appropriate, or to add tourism jobs to skilled labour policies.

To address ongoing skills shortages, the United Kingdom introduced the Hospitality Skills Passport, a digital pass which can be added to CVs to show employers that jobseekers have the skillset required for specific roles. Malta is implementing a national certification system, ‘Skills Pass’, which aims to ensure hospitality and tourism workers have the skills, knowledge and attitude to deliver quality service. The Skills Pass sets a clear benchmark for competence and candidates need the Pass to move forward in the recruitment or work permit process. Malta is also introducing a training programme for existing tourism employees and promoting tourism-related career opportunities to students. Germany is seeking to address tourism workforce shortages with a more modern working time law to make working hours more flexible. This new law will have a weekly instead of a daily maximum working time to create room for a variety of working time models, like those in the tourism sector.

Diversifying the tourism economy for balanced tourism development

Tourism, when well-managed, can serve as a powerful catalyst for community development, enhancing resilience and empowerment, while preserving natural and cultural resources. However, existing models of tourism development often result in unevenly distributed impacts (OECD, 2024[23]). Such imbalances can have significant environmental, economic, and social consequences for local communities. In some destinations, overcrowding is placing visible and structural pressure on infrastructure and quality of life. While frequently framed as a tourism issue, these challenges often stem from deeper systemic factors, including underinvestment in infrastructure, inadequate planning, and fragmented governance. This is also explored in more depth in Chapter 3.

Spreading demand away from existing tourism hubs and peak seasons can serve the dual purpose of tackling overcrowding in popular destinations and attractions, while also stimulating regional economies (OECD, 2021[24]). To reduce regional disparities, the Slovak Republic is providing support to develop tourism in under-visited and rural areas through targeted grant schemes and infrastructure investments. Funding is focused on developing cultural, nature-based and wellness tourism products that attract visitors beyond traditional destinations and peak seasons.

Infrastructure is central to the competitiveness and balanced development of destinations, with transport and digital infrastructure particularly important in rural areas. New Zealand’s Great Rides cycle‑trail network draws visitors into more remote areas, attracting over two million users annually, and contributing over NZD 1.28 billion into regional economies. Similarly, Slovenia’s National Intelligence System for Tourism (NiST) uses live data to monitor flows and redirect tourists toward less‑visited destinations. In Israel, a targeted incentive programme offers capital grants of up to 20% of construction costs for new hotel construction or expansion projects outside of the already popular destinations, Tel Aviv and Herzliya. With a budget of around ILS 200 million, the scheme aims to support increased accommodation capacity while promoting regional diversification.

Targeting specific markets or tourism segments can also play an important role in managing tourism. In Europe, research indicates that older European travellers drive demand for different forms of travel, such as wellness, off-season travel, rural escapes, and accessibility-driven offers. These trends can create opportunities for underused regions to attract visitors with slower-paced, off-season, and less commodified experiences (European Travel Commission, 2025[15]).

Large-scale events are increasingly being used to showcase emerging destinations and spread the benefits of tourism more widely. Such events are often accompanied by significant infrastructure investment which, if effectively planned and managed, can help the development of destinations. The FIFA World Cup 2026, co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, is being staged across multiple cities in the co-host countries Canada, Mexico and the United States, with a key objective of leveraging global demand to stimulate tourism across all host regions (Box 2.5). Latvia similarly views large-scale events as a catalyst for attracting new visitors and to showcase the country as an active year-round destination. These events are seen as an opportunity to foster synergies across regions and sectors, raise the profile of the country and generate broader economic benefits. To support this approach, Latvia approved an initiative in 2025 to grant state budget co-financing for large-scale events and international film productions with the aim of stimulating tourism and maximising the associated economic spillovers.

Box 2.5. Using the 2026 FIFA World Cup to showcase tourism destinations in the United States

During the FIFA World Cup 2026 co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, 78 of the matches are taking place across 11 cities in the United States. The event is expected to significantly boost local businesses, infrastructure development, and job creation, with FIFA estimating that the event could generate up to USD 6.4 billion in tourism spending across the country. The US Government, in co-ordination with Brand USA, is working to leverage its hosting of the FIFA World Cup to position the country as the premier destination for global sporting events and to encourage visitation to the host cities and beyond by offering potential itineraries. Visitors are expected to attend games, base camp locations and fan events across the country – increasing the overall economic gains. Existing country-specific travel competitiveness data can be utilised to recommend targeted marketing strategies to host cities and destination management organisations with the goal of increasing average attendance and travel revenue during the event. The United States intends to measure the impact from international visitors to the 78 US-hosted matches by leveraging existing data sources like the Survey of International Air Travelers (SIAT) to measure international visitation, economic impact, and traveller characteristics. This information will help destinations quantify the cost-benefit ratio of hosting the FIFA World Cup and other major sporting events, and support destinations to plan for future international events.

At the destination level, targeted national support is needed to better manage visitor flows and address tourism imbalances. In Iceland, managing unbalanced tourism distribution and pressure remains a key priority. Provisions are being developed to better manage access, safety and site-specific conditions at tourist destinations, including planning and risk management considerations. Austria created the guide “Find the Right Balance” to support regional decision makers to address imbalances in tourism, accompanied by assistance to design tailor-made solutions across seventeen pilot regions. These projects were selected under a funding call with a focus on addressing tourism imbalances using mobile phone data, weather data and AI to improve visitor flow management, alongside promoting sustainable modes of transport and developing tools to measure the sustainable development of tourism destinations. Building on its National Strategy for the Management of Tourist Flows, France has also launched a study on measuring international tourist flows and established a dedicated community of practice focused on the smart management of tourist flows (Box 2.6).

The increased focus on balancing tourism flows has renewed discussion around the concept of carrying capacity and its potential to inform destination management. While there is no universally agreed approach or methodology to determine the carrying capacity of tourism destinations, efforts in this area can help to determine critical thresholds and guide trade-offs to achieve more balanced outcomes. To strengthen its approach to managing tourism and visitor flows, Costa Rica is developing a methodology to assess the ‘maximum acceptable capacity of tourists’ a national level and across its 33 tourism development centres.

Digital tools, and the rich data they generate, offer significant opportunities to better understand and manage the movement of people. Across regions in Japan, initiatives are being implemented to promote sustainable tourism, including the analysis and visualisation of congestion patterns through the use of digital technologies.

Box 2.6. Managing tourist flows in France

In France, 80% of tourism activity is concentrated in 20% of the territory. Peaks in visitation are quickly reached in certain territories in the main tourism season. These peaks pose a threat to the preservation of the environment, the quality of life of residents, and tourist experiences and have made measuring tourism flows a priority. Key initiatives to measure and manage tourism flows include:

• The National Strategy for the Management of Tourist Flows was adopted by France in 2023, complementing the national tourism strategy. It aims to preserve the balance between the development of local economic activity and the sustainability and preservation of tourist sites.

• 25 pilot sites were selected under the Strategy, to strengthen the observation of flows in each territory and support the development of management strategies adapted to local specificities, including through measurement tools and a survey to measure resident acceptance of tourist flows. A practical guide has been developed, gathering key insights and concrete case studies to support flow management. An evaluation phase of the Strategy was launched at the end of 2025.

• A study has been launched to better understand the challenges of measuring international tourist flows by comparing the observation systems in France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. In a second phase, the study will provide recommendations to optimise the revenue that France can generate from international tourism.

• A special-interest community focused on smart management of tourist flows was launched in July 2025. The community is designed to foster disruptive innovations in the tourism sector through collaborative work among academic stakeholders, major corporations, and tourism professionals. It aims to identify emerging technologies that can address specific needs and uses, paving the way for new models.

• The development of concrete actions to encourage public and private actors to make available their data on tourism flows.

Promoting seamless and resilient tourism transport

Transport is an integral part of the tourism experience, and a major source of its environmental footprint (International Transport Forum, 2024[25]). Indeed, recent disruptions to global air travel linked to conflict in the Middle East further underscore the importance of resilient and well-co-ordinated transport systems. In a sector fundamentally dependent on the physical movement of people, effective co-ordination between transport and tourism planning is essential. An integrated approach can help provide seamless connections across different modes of transport to benefit both visitors and residents, and improve destination connectivity and accessibility. With around 75% of the sector’s emissions stemming from transport, and air travel alone contributing 40% (International Transport Forum, 2024[25]), integrated approaches can also encourage a shift toward lower-impact and more energy-efficient transport options (OECD, 2020[26]).

For countries aiming to provide seamless, multimodal, and energy-efficient mobility, investment in technological innovation and infrastructure is a key priority, closely linked to destination management and connectivity. In Sweden, the National Plan for Transport Infrastructure for 2026–2037 prioritises investment in the road network, including the expansion of charging infrastructure to support more sustainable tourism in both urban and remote areas. The Swedish Transport Administration is also developing a strategy to align the national railway system with the European Rail Traffic Management System by 2042. The Rail Baltica initiative, spanning Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, aims to integrate regional rail infrastructure into the wider European rail network. In 2025, the project entered a phase of large-scale construction with a key design contract signed for the Poland–Kaunas connection, marking a major step in cross-border integration. Similarly, Chile, is investing in improvements to its national road network to close critical gaps that currently hinder access to areas with high tourism potential, to support the geographical de-concentration of tourist flows and enable the development of destinations across the country.

Large-scale infrastructure investment can significantly strengthen the tourism transport system, supported by integrated ticketing systems that streamline the booking of transport across modes and borders. The European Commission’s Multimodal Digital Mobility Services initiative aims to advance the development of seamless ticketing services across passenger transport modes to improve multimodality, accessibility and sustainability within and between EU Member States. A complementary proposal is being developed to reduce market fragmentation and ensure access to a comprehensive range of transport offers across the EU. This initiative will be closely linked with the Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation, which seeks to expand the availability of rail tickets on digital platforms and make it possible for passengers to book multi-operator rail journeys in a single transaction, while maintaining full passenger rights throughout the entire trip. At sub-national level, integrated and multimodal ticketing can also simplify access to public transport, making it a more attractive option.

Transport within destinations also remains a key component of the tourism experience. The transition to electric and other energy-efficient transport options depends on the availability of supporting infrastructure, including accessible public transport systems, optimised routing, and the promotion of active and low-impact (“soft”) mobility options. Denmark is advancing efforts to reduce tourism-related carbon emissions by expanding infrastructure for electric vehicles, promoting cycling, and supporting the electrification of busses and canal boats in Copenhagen. At the same time, tourists are encouraged to make more environmentally friendly transport choices during their stay in Denmark. Similarly, the Slovak Republic is investing in low-emission transport solutions such as cycling infrastructure and improved public transit links to tourist sites. In Slovenia, a proposed policy on accessibility and sustainable mobility aims to significantly reduce emissions from tourism by prioritising measures such as reducing reliance on fossil fuel-based private vehicles, upgrading integrated public passenger transport to better meet tourism needs, and redefining accessibility priorities based on carbon intensity per passenger and the value added of different markets. The policy also emphasises the need to maximise the positive impact of transit tourists and highlights the importance of effective mobility management.

In Europe, the Partnership on Sustainable Tourism Mobility, which is led by Austria as part of the Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme, has developed guidance to provide responsible national authorities with climate-friendly approaches to transport and tourism. The framework outlines clear actions and recommendations to improve mobility in tourism, concrete case studies and innovative approaches to help national governments integrate low-emissions and efficient mobility solutions into their policies and activities.

Tourism transport is often considered synonymous with aviation, which is a significant and growing contributor to global emissions. Technological innovation, including the development and production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), represents one lever to reduce transport emissions. However, there are severe limitations to scaling up SAF to the levels needed (Becken, Mackey and Lee, 2023[27]; International Transport Forum, 2024[25]). As such, countries may also seek to explore alternative transport options such as high-speed rail, electric aircraft, and hydrogen technologies. According to International Transport Forum projections, reducing aviation emissions will increase ticket prices, by potentially on average 25-30% by 2060 (International Transport Forum, 2024[25]).

Following recent crises, a priority for many countries continues to be restoring and expanding aviation networks to increase connectivity. In light of recent aviation disruptions in the Middle East, an emerging priority in some countries is also to reduce over‑reliance on regional hub carriers by expanding connectivity options and strengthening alternative air transport corridors. Lithuania aims to improve year-round connectivity, especially air routes with major European hubs, building on strong recent passenger growth, expanding route networks and frequencies, while remaining attentive to emerging operational risks that could affect future capacity and demand. This follows infrastructure upgrades in recent years such as the expansion of Vilnius Airport capacity, alongside continued network development and efforts to better distribute tourism flows across the country.

More work is needed to balance and offset increased aviation connectivity to reduce the overall impact of tourism on the environment. New Zealand’s Aviation Action Plan, released in 2025, outlines a shared ambition between industry and government to grow a future-proof aviation sector, and an initial set of 25 actions to support progress towards this ambition. Along with actions to foster a supportive regulatory framework, build a skilled workforce, promote innovation and ensure infrastructure supports efficient and sustainable movement of people and goods, the Action Plan contains several actions under an ambition to encourage the use of resource-efficient energy, in line with New Zealand’s path to net zero by 2050.

Tourism transport also depends on the provision of safe and seamless mobility to enhance destination competitiveness and improve the traveller experience. This can be achieved through measures such as simplifying visa requirements and application processes, introducing digital traveller identity and biometric systems, strengthening multimodal transport and connectivity, and improving the availability of information and assistance to visitors (OECD, 2020[26]). The United States is leveraging advanced technologies and mobile applications to transform inspections at airports into a seamless, touchless process, enabling faster risk identification and efficient processing of legitimate visitors. Meanwhile, Egypt is relaunching its visa system to integrate all types of tourism visas to simplify entry for international travellers.

Addressing the environmental pressures shaping tourism

Tourism both impacts and is highly dependent on the quality of the environment. Changing seasons, extreme weather events, and rising sea levels are increasingly reshaping travel patterns, with potential structural implications for some destinations and for global travel flows more broadly. The sector is highly exposed to multiple, often cumulative, impacts, as evidenced in recent years by extreme temperatures, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather-related events which have impacted visitors, businesses, and communities world-wide. The consequences of these events extend beyond the immediate damage to infrastructure and natural assets, also impacting the functionality, resilience and recovery of destinations, as well as increasing operational costs and risks for tourism businesses. They can also significantly influence the health and comfort of tourists and workers, alter the geography and seasonality of tourism demand, and require more proactive adaptation and resilience planning at destination level (OECD, 2024[23]; European Travel Commission, 2025[15]). These issues are further explored in Chapter 4.

Many countries are implementing initiatives to prepare for and address the impacts of changing seasons and extreme weather-related events. These efforts range from targeted projects and local interventions to comprehensive tourism-specific adaptation plans aligned with broader national adaptation plans. For example, Chile has developed a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Tourism Sector, approved in November 2024, which aims to strengthen the sector’s capacity to address climate change through enhanced intersectoral co-ordination and proactive risk management. Ireland has similarly developed a Tourism Sectoral Adaptation Plan, designed to support communities, ecosystems, and businesses in adapting to rising risks and building long-term resilience (Box 2.7).

Box 2.7. Implementing a tourism climate adaptation plan in Ireland

Ireland has recently experienced multiple high-profile extreme weather events that have underscored the need for effective adaptation measures to build resilience to the impacts of a changing climate. This has led to the development of Ireland’s first Sectoral Adaptation Plan dedicated to the tourism sector.

The Plan seeks to identify both the challenges and opportunities presented by a changing climate, with the aim of maintaining Ireland’s appeal to tourists and supporting resilient communities through employment and economic growth. Implementation of the Tourism Sectoral Adaptation Plan prioritises reducing the consequences of the climate related hazards identified by the National Climate Change Risk Assessment for the sector. The Plan sets out three goals for the next five years:

• Increase the tourism sector’s understanding of the relationship between climatic variables and the tourism sector to improve the sector’s ability to address the impacts of climate change.

• Build a shared awareness of climate change, its impacts, and necessary steps to develop resilience across the tourism sector in Ireland, particularly amongst tourism-dependent communities.

• Build resilience to reduce the consequences of the most significant climate risks faced by the tourism sector.

The implementation of the Plan will be led by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and its tourism agencies. It contains a number of actions to achieve the goals, including researching to define baseline and climate resilience targets for the sector, performing a skills gap analysis regarding adaptation across the sector and developing a tailored training plan, updating tourism surveys where required, raising awareness about the impacts of climate change, including in destinations and with businesses, and incorporating climate adaptation into tourism strategies.

Portugal is preparing a Climate Agenda for Tourism 2025-2030, an action plan focused on decarbonising and strengthening the sector's resilience. The Agenda seeks to advance the transition to a low-emission, resilient, and regenerative tourism, that generates economic, social, and environmental value, while reinforcing Portugal's competitiveness as a destination. The Slovak Republic is also advance climate action in tourism through targeted funding, awareness-raising, and planning tools, with initiatives aimed at embedding more resource-efficient practices into day-to-day operations and supporting the shift to a low-carbon economy. The Netherlands is working to build a climate-resilient hospitality sector by mapping the risks and translating these insights into targeted recommendations and action plans for businesses and public authorities. In Switzerland, the Kompass Schnee programme supports winter destinations in developing adaptation strategies using scientific data and a digital tool, while the Adapt+ funding programme, introduced in 2025, provides dedicated support for climate adaptation in tourism, with a focus on diversifying offerings and strengthening year-round destination resilience.

Achieving meaningful reductions in the environmental impact of tourism requires significant changes by businesses of all sizes across the tourism ecosystem. This includes transitioning from traditional linear models towards more resource-efficient approaches that minimise waste, reduce energy and resource consumption, support the regeneration of natural assets, and prioritise more efficient and lower-impact transport modes. To foster this shift, tourism businesses require clear guidance and practical support on the steps they can take. Australia’s Sustainable Tourism Toolkit for Businesses provides practical, easy-to-understand guidance structured around four pillars, including one focused on “implementing environmental and climate actions”. Under this pillar of the Toolkit, businesses are provided with steps to measure direct and indirect emissions, reduce energy and water use, improve waste management, consider transport options, adapt to a changing climate, support biodiversity and regeneration, improve air quality, and engage responsibly with wildlife.

Greece is promoting a model of circular economy in tourism enterprises through tourism education and initiatives focused on zero waste, the use of alternative sources of energy, waste reduction and recycling, and the promotion of local products. The Sustainable Travel Finland programme aims to raise awareness among tourism operators of biodiversity issues, including the potential impacts of their own activities. In 2024, a toolkit was developed to help tourism businesses better integrate biodiversity considerations into their operations. Finland is also adopting a “nature positive” approach that seeks to minimise environmental harm and actively invest in nature restoration in tourism destinations. At European level, the Cross-Re-Tour project supports SMEs by providing access to knowledge and tools related to green, digital and circular economy practices to improve operational performance. These solutions, which are often used in other industries or by larger tourism players, are being tested, implemented, and scaled through the project’s Open Innovation Programme.

At international level, the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative (GTPI) provides a framework to support tourism stakeholders transition to more circular approaches to plastics use. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Tourism, the initiative requires signatories to commit to eliminating unnecessary plastic packaging; substituting essential plastics with reusable, recyclable or compostable alternatives; and collaborating and investing to increase recycling and composting rates for plastics. GTPI initiatives include a pilot workstream to identify and promote reusable alternatives to problematic plastic items in tourism operations, with technical training sessions offering practical solutions, business cases, and strategies to engage staff and clients (UN Tourism, 2025[28]). Similarly, the One Planet Network launched its Recipe of Change initiative on the International Day of Zero Waste 2026, providing tourism stakeholders with a practical framework to translate global ambitions on food waste reduction into measurable action to contribute to the global effort to halve food waste by 2030.

Tourism policies aimed at reducing environmental impacts require a stronger, more timely and granular evidence base. Existing official tourism indicators are often highly aggregated and subject to significant time lags, limiting their usefulness for monitoring environmental performance, especially at the tourism business or destination level. In response, countries are developing tailored tools and methodologies, including environmental calculators, to fill these gaps. Under the Türkiye Environmental and Cultural Sustainability Program, a voluntary carbon footprint calculator has been developed to support accommodation facilities in aligning with the programme’s environmental sustainability criteria. Available free of charge to authorised users, the tool allows businesses to measure and analyse emissions using a standardised methodology. The resulting data helps identify opportunities to improve resource efficiency, optimise operations, reduce impacts, and strengthen sustainability management.

Broadening participation and unlocking the potential of accessible tourism

Broadening participation and making tourism experiences more accessible can deliver wide-reaching benefits for regional economies and the quality of life of visitors and residents. Improving accessibility offers a dual opportunity: to spread the benefits of tourism and tap into a growing market with significant potential, including aging populations, while responding to demographic change and evolving accessibility needs. Within countries, the tourism sector can create economic opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds across urban and rural communities. As the value of accessible tourism becomes increasingly recognised, governments are introducing targeted policies to address key barriers and unlock these opportunities. The G7/OECD policy paper on creating economic prosperity through Tourism, endorsed the G7 Tourism Ministers under Italy’s 2024 G7 Presidency, highlights the importance of supporting accessible approaches to the design and development of tourism products and services to take advantage of the positive social and economic impacts (OECD, 2024[23]).

People requiring mobility assistance present a significant opportunity for the tourism sector but often depend on specific infrastructure, tailored services and targeted adjustments from destinations and businesses. Innovative approaches to the design and delivery of tourism products, services, and infrastructure can make tourism more accessible to all. In Korea, accessibility is being strengthened through enhancements to the physical environment alongside efforts to fostering greater awareness and cultural maturity, including with the development of Open Tourism Destinations to address barriers faced by visitors. These destinations will focus on enhancing physical connectivity and improving access to key components of the tourism system across regions, such as transportation, hospitality, accommodation, and information services, while responding to evolving and specific accessibility needs. In Israel, dedicated grants support accessibility for people with disabilities at major tourist sites and the development of infrastructure in peripheral areas through the Accessibility Budgeting Procedures for Tourist Sites 2024-2025 and the Public Tourism Infrastructure Development Procedure 2025.

Germany aims to provide ‘socially responsible tourism that makes travel open to all’ and has implemented the Tourism for All national labelling system for accessible services. This scheme is based on comprehensive criteria to ensure high cross-sectoral quality standards, and was developed in co-operation with relevant affected persons and tourism associations. Peru has developed “Guidelines for the Development of Social Tourism in Peru” which sets out seven strategic lines of action: research and planning, design and development of accessible products, awareness and communication, capacity building, demand facilitation, institutionalisation and monitoring, and evaluation. Peru has also published the technical document “Accessibility Guide: Tourism for All” which provides practical recommendations for tourism service providers and site managers to design and adapt tourism experiences that enable broader participation, while supporting the right to leisure, rest, and an improved quality of life.

Alongside the development of accessible infrastructure and tourism products, it is equally important that the relevant information is readily available and effectively communicated to travellers with accessibility needs. To support this, Greece is introducing new quality labels to identify Accessible Tourism Destinations and Accessible Tourism Enterprises. In France, a Hackathon on “Making Tourism Accessible for Persons with Disabilities” organised as part of wider work on a Tourism Data Roadmap focused on improving the availability and use of information for visitors through existing public tourism data. The event brought together around 60 participants over two days, resulting in three winning projects that proposed innovative ways to use existing datasets to better support persons with disabilities. These projects were subsequently presented to a wider audience, including key stakeholder from the tourism and data ecosystems, at an event in 2025.

There is a growing recognition of the positive impacts that access to tourism can have on people’s quality of life. In response, many countries provide financial assistance to enable residents to participate in tourism where this may otherwise have been out of reach. In Costa Rica, the adoption of the Tourism for All Law recognises tourism as a right to rest, leisure, and recreation. The associated Tourism for All programme seeks to expand access to tourism for people with limited financial means and for people with disabilities. In operation since 2024, this programme has supported more than 1 000 tourists, in co-operation with the tourism sector.

As a major employer of all population groups, the tourism sector builds social capital and supports broader economic and community outcomes, including in rural and remote areas. In Belgium, the region of Wallonia launched a workforce development programme to encourage the recruitment of young people, women, and other target groups. Australia’s ‘Choose Tourism’ programme was designed to attract people to work in the sector across 2022-24, with a communications campaign delivered to encourage employers to consider employing young and more mature people, First Nations Australians, and people living with a disability. The Tourism Local Navigator Pilot, undertaken in 2023-24, supported tourism businesses to employ people with a disability, with the pilot engaging around 1 600 businesses and delivering more than 160 employment outcomes.

Mobilising financing and investment for tourism development

Financing and investment are needed to build a competitive and resilient tourism sector that keeps pace with the digital transition, reduces environmental pressures, and maximises benefits for local communities, while supporting long-term economic growth. Continued growth in tourism demand will require sustained investment in infrastructure and services to better manage rising visitor volumes, deliver seamless experiences, and respond to evolving consumer preferences, while limiting pressures on host destinations. A co-ordinated approach that mobilises the private sector investment, supported by enabling public policies and funding mechanisms can help strengthen destination resilience and competitiveness, while generating broader economic benefits.

New and alternate funding streams, beyond traditional public budgets, are increasingly needed to finance the infrastructure and services required to accommodate growing tourism demand while reducing pressures on communities and the natural environment. In 2025, Norway adopted an Act on Visitor Fees enabling municipalities experiencing high tourism pressure to levy visitor fees to help finance tourism-related public goods. Revenues are earmarked for local use, with the municipalities required to prepare and submit plans for how the funds will be allocated, for approval by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. Iceland plans to introduce a resource and infrastructure fee at publicly owned nature sites. The fee is intended to support the development, maintenance and conservation of destinations, while also contributing, in part, to research and destination marketing at the national level. To support conservation and development of tourism infrastructure, New Zealand collects an International Visitor levy from most international arrivals. Chile has introduced a 1.25% accommodation tax for inbound tourists that will finance the new International Tourism Promotion Fund under its Tourism Reactivation and Audiovisual Industry Promotion Bill. Colombia and Japan collect an international passenger tax which is used to fund tourism-related programmes. In Japan, plans are underway to effectively triple the departure tax for all travellers leaving Japan from JPY 1 000 to JPY 3 000 as part of efforts to create a more balanced tourism model.

Attracting private investment is fundamental to delivering a high-quality and competitive tourism offer. Tax incentives, favourable development regulations and the promotion of specific investment opportunities are strategies being used by countries to attract high-value investment from private companies. Stimulating private investment to mobilise tourism development and support the efficient use of resources is a key priority of many national tourism strategies, including Denmark’s Pathways to Sustainable Tourism Growth, Hungary’s National Active Tourism Strategy, and the Strategy of Slovenian Tourism 2022-28.

Montenegro introduced a range of fiscal, tax and regulatory reforms to streamline pre-investment procedures to obtain permits and facilitate project development. To incentivise investment in high-quality accommodation, investors are exempt from paying import VAT on goods and services used in the construction of five-star hotels, while property taxes are reduced by 30% for four-star hotels and 70% for five-star hotels operating year-round. Egypt is also pursuing an ambitious investment strategy to expand its tourism capacity, with a target to increase the number of hotel rooms from approximately 228 000 rooms in 2024 to nearly 500 000 rooms by 2030. As part of this effort, Egypt is also launching a flagship Tourism Investment Map, designed as a dynamic platform to highlight investment opportunities across the sector and provide regularly updated information to investors.

Argentina has worked with UN Tourism and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean to develop a guide to showcase the country’s investment potential. The guide highlights key regional assets, competitive advantages, and available tax incentives at both federal and provincial level, alongside recent regulatory reforms aimed at encouraging economic openness and private sector participation. It also includes 25 concrete investment opportunities. Complementing this, the Private Tourism Investment Promotion Programme provides a dedicated digital platform that centralises information on sector-specific incentives, investment opportunities and financing instruments available for tourism projects.

Government grants and subsides are another tool to help stimulate targeted tourism investment, particularly for the modernisation of infrastructure, the adoption of new technologies and the development of skills. The Slovak Republic established the Tourism Support Fund with the objective of developing and modernising tourism infrastructure. In 2025, a funding call was launched with a total allocation of EUR 19 million, offering support of up to EUR 500 000 for tourism projects to strengthen the competitiveness of tourism across regions. The programme supports initiatives that contribute to the economic, environmental and social performance of tourism, as well as the construction, modernisation and reconstruction of resilient tourism infrastructure. Eligible activities included the development of cultural, recreational, natural and sports infrastructure, improvement to local visitor facilities, creation of tourism routes, support for health tourism, and investment in water-based recreational infrastructure.

Morocco’s “Go Siyaha” programme aims to support more than 1 700 projects by 2026, with the goal of strengthening the leisure and entertainment offer, diversifying the tourist experience, and enhancing the sector’s competitiveness. Capitalising on more than 1 000 projects already underway, the programme was updated in July 2025 to support more high-impact tourism initiatives. Key enhancements include the removal of the minimum investment threshold, allowing projects under MAD 1 million to benefit from support, expanded support for existing businesses looking to develop new offerings, and the provision of technical assistance from the start-up phase to help structure projects and facilitate access to financing.

As previously noted in this chapter, small businesses and SMEs in particular continue to face constraints in accessing the financing needed to support their transition to more resource-efficient and digitally enabled operations (OECD, 2026[19]). Despite the availability of a wider range of private and public financing instruments, access to finance remains a persistent challenge in the sector. There is scope to encourage greater uptake of economy-wide financing instruments, while also developing targeted instruments that address specific tourism-related needs, without duplicating broader SME support frameworks. At the same time, more needs to be done to strengthen the financial literacy, capacity and preparedness of tourism SMEs and entrepreneurs to access and effectively use available financing instruments.

Steps are now being taken to integrate environmental and social considerations into tourism investment decision making frameworks and financial reporting mechanisms. In Austria, new funding guidelines for tourism SMEs launched in 2023 include a sustainability bonus of 3.5% (as of July 2025) in additional funding up to EUR 175 000 for investments aligned with ecological, social and economic objectives. The funding scheme is administered by the Austrian Bank for Tourism Development (OeHT), which also provides tourism SMEs with a 3% interest subsidy for projects that meet specific ecological requirements, such as thermal rehabilitation, changing heating systems to renewable energy, introducing new energy-efficient devices, or undertaking measures to undo soil sealing. In parallel, Austria has developed a set of key performance indicators tailored to the tourism sector to support ESG measurement, responding to the growing demand from financial institutions requiring businesses to provide robust sustainability reporting for investment and financing decisions.

Denmark introduced new sustainability reporting on certified tourism businesses, with support provided to SMEs and entrepreneurs to meet new requirements. The goal is to have 70% of all accommodation establishments and amusement parks achieve baseline certification by 2030. In Ireland, under the Tourism Sectoral Adaptation Plan, all future Fáilte Ireland schemes providing financial assistance will include specific conditions and measures related to climate adaptation from 2027. In Belgium, the region of Wallonia is also shifting away from general subsidies toward more structured funding mechanisms that prioritise projects aligned with environmental and social objectives, alongside the development of a platform to co-ordinate initiatives and facilitate the exchange of best practices.

Spain has invested over EUR 3.4 billion as part of the Plan for the Modernisation and Competitiveness of the Tourism Sector, financed under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, a flagship instrument of Next Generation EU. Actions were aimed at transforming the tourism model towards sustainability, promoting digitalisation and intelligence for destinations and the tourism sector, and strengthening the overall competitiveness of destinations.

As such reporting requirements become more prominent, SMEs will require clearer frameworks and practical tools to address data collection and reporting challenges (OECD, 2025[29]). Providing accessible guidance and user-friendly digital solutions can help smaller businesses to collect the relevant information and comply with emerging standards, while avoiding disproportionate administrative burdens.

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