News and questions (without answers) from the week ending February 1, 2026
Your digest of travel & tourism news and views — and the questions they elicit — from the week ending Sunday, February 1, 2026. This is drafted by Gemini AI in the impartial spirit and skeptical style of The “Good Tourism” Blog (“GT”) under the direction of “GT’s” very human publisher.
The price of paradise and the value of a dollar
In a week in which Fiji Airways called for “united action” to manage local tourism growth (Islands Business), two other stories highlight the disparate measures destinations are taking to handle visitor numbers.
In Las Vegas, hotels are reportedly accepting the Canadian dollar at par with the US dollar to lure visitors back (CTV News), suggesting that for all the talk of ‘value over volume’, heads in beds remains a primary metric.
Meanwhile, in Europe, experts are proposing “de-growth” to balance community needs with visitor flows (LPA Visit).
This presents a potential dichotomy for 2026: one half of the world appears to be paying people to arrive, while the other is exploring ways to encourage them to stay away.
Nature: Rights, lights, and ‘holiday mode’
The tension between experiencing nature and exploiting it remains one of the industry’s central conflicts, with reported progress for animal welfare this week tempered by the persistent habits of the traveller.
- Trunks down, nationwide: Following last week’s news from the Bali Zoo, reports suggest Indonesia is moving to end elephant rides nationwide, a significant shift in Southeast Asian tourism that prioritises animal welfare over entertainment revenue (The Hill) (Animal Survival International).
- Flash point: In a niche but telling example of impact, photo-tourism is now being linked to the disruption of ‘galaxy frogs’ in India’s Western Ghats, raising the question of whether the desire to document nature could be blinding the wildlife (India Legal).
- Green amnesia: A new study from the University of Queensland suggests that “green habits vanish on vacation”, indicating that sustainable intentions at home may often dissolve when we enter ‘holiday mode’ (UQ News).
- Restoration hope: In Australia, efforts to restore the Great Barrier Reef are intensifying, though the scale of the climate threat looms large over local interventions (Vox).
If we can legislate against elephant rides but cannot legislate against our own apathy, will sustainable tourism ever be more than a policy paper?
Tech and transport: Hype, highways, and hydrogen
The push to decarbonise transport has produced a flurry of announcements, from electric air taxis in Florida to carbon highways in Europe, but the economics appear volatile.
- Fuel volatility: Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) prices remain volatile, highlighting the scaling challenges the sector faces as it tries to move from press releases to pump prices (S&P Global).
- Air taxi testing: In Florida, Eve Air Mobility is testing electric air taxis, while Vertical Aerospace aims to “democratise” urban air travel, pushing a vision of the future that could look like The Jetsons for the affluent (Florida Today) (Yahoo Finance).
- Superconducting shift: Toshiba and Airbus are collaborating on superconducting motors for hydrogen-powered aircraft, a long-term bet that suggests current battery tech might be viewed as a stopgap (MultiVu).
- Carbon highways: Energy firms have secured a deal to build a “CO2 transport highway” across Europe, a large-scale infrastructure project designed to move captured carbon, raising the question: wouldn’t it be easier just to emit less? (Gasworld).
Are we building a greener future, or just a more complex and expensive infrastructure to manage our refusal to slow down?
Culture and community: Heritage as the ‘new oil’
With ‘heritage tourism’ reportedly valued at USD 607 billion annually, destinations appear to be scrambling to monetise their past, often framing it as a strategic economic leap.
- Strategic leaps: Grenada and Oman are both pivoting to heritage tourism, reinventing their global brands around culture and maritime history to diversify away from sun-and-sand models (The New Today) (The Arab Weekly).
- The Africa-Europe bridge: UNESCO has launched a new project to link African and European culture, hoping to use heritage tourism as a diplomatic and economic bridge between the continents (UNESCO).
- Favela focus: In Brazil, favela tourism continues to grow, walking a fine line between economic opportunity for residents and the ‘zoo-ification’ of poverty (AP News).
- Funding the stewards: In Hawaii, the Kahu ʻĀina program has selected local projects for funding, placing resources directly in the hands of the community stewards who maintain the land (Big Island Now).
When culture becomes a ‘strategic asset’ worth billions, does the community sell their story, or do they just sell the rights to it?
The year ahead
As February begins, the industry appears caught in a bind. We have grand plans for hydrogen planes and heritage billions, but we are still grappling with basic human behaviours; like turning off the lights for frogs or paying a fair price for a hotel room. The year ahead may look less like a smooth transition to sustainability and more like a messy negotiation between our high-tech ambitions and our low-effort habits.
What do you think?
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