The Disconnect Between the Top Global Risks and the Travel Industry

The annual Global Risks Report, from the World Economic Forum, is here as Davos starts, and this summary chart below of top 10 short-term and long-term risks is fascinating, almost all of them have direct implications in travel, for many of these the travel industry is, in some part, one of the underlying causes of these risks. Read or download the full report here.

Most of the times if you ask the top folks running this giant global industry, 1) they don’t care about these risks 2) will deny or deflect having any hand in contributing to these 3) have no idea how to deal with these risks. 

In my mind, there is still too much disconnect between the fate of the world and future of travel industry, and that *has* too close. My hope is the next generation of younger leaders in travel — and better tourism governmental leaders — will lead this change, and close this gap. (As an aside, I have been saying for a while: the world deserves better tourism ministers, 95% of them are there for the grift…I will write something more on this separately, soon).

For us at Skift, this delta between these is where a lot of our coverage will continue to be focused on.

P.S.: “Global risk” in the report is defined as the possibility of the occurrence of an event or condition which, if it occurs, would negatively impact a significant proportion of global GDP, population or natural resources.