News and questions (without answers) from the week ending January 4, 2026

As we stumble into 2026, the travel & tour­ism industry is wak­ing up to a par­tic­u­larly jar­ring ‘morn­ing after’. The rhet­or­ic of 2025 — prom­ises of seam­less digit­al­isa­tion, eth­ic­al wild­life encoun­ters, and ‘net-zero’ fuels — is col­lid­ing with a messy reality.

From the unin­ten­ded con­sequences of bio­fuels on hon­ey­bee pop­u­la­tions to the “worst pos­sible exper­i­ence” delivered by over-digit­al­isa­tion, the first few days of the year sug­gest that every ‘solu­tion’ brings a new set of problems.