{"id":8068,"date":"2026-09-08T09:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.top25golfcourses.com\/indonesia\/global-travel-news\/tourism-is-diplomacy-without-a-negotiating-table\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:31:09","slug":"tourism-is-diplomacy-without-a-negotiating-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.top25golfcourses.com\/indonesia\/global-travel-news\/tourism-is-diplomacy-without-a-negotiating-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourism Is Diplomacy Without a Negotiating Table"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tourism<\/div>\n

\"Tourism<\/a>Oxford, United Kingdom, September 08, 2026 \/ TRAVELINDEX \/ What if the most powerful diplomacy of our time happens not in embassies or at summit tables, but over a shared meal? That was the question Ambassador Dr. Alain St.Ange of the Seychelles put to delegates today as he delivered the keynote address at the Oxford Global Diplomat Summit & Dialogue<\/strong> at the Lord Mayor\u2019s Cabinet Office<\/strong>, in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Oxford.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the theme \u201cTourism as a Bridge Between Nations<\/em>,\u201d St.Ange made the case that tourism deserves to be understood as far more than an economic sector. It is, he argued, a daily act of human connection that can challenge prejudice, strengthen peace, and reshape how nations see one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its best, tourism allows us to meet each other as people,\u201d St.Ange told the gathering. \u201cAnd at a time when the world is more connected than ever, but also deeply divided in many ways, that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The numbers are enormous \u2014 but they are not the whole story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

St.Ange opened with figures that few in the room could ignore. The World Travel and Tourism Council forecasts that in 2026, travel and tourism will contribute around $12 trillion to the global economy \u2014 almost 10 percent of global GDP. The sector is expected to support roughly 376 million jobs, or about one in every nine jobs worldwide.<\/p>\n

Yet he was quick to push past the statistics. Why, he asked, do we so often reduce tourism to a scoreboard of arrivals?<\/p>\n

\u201cBehind every international arrival is a person crossing a border, a culture being encountered, and a community being seen. And sometimes, a prejudice being challenged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The difference between knowing about a country and actually knowing its people, he argued, is the difference tourism can make. A nation becomes the home of the taxi driver who spoke about his children, and an unfamiliar culture becomes the family who welcomed a visitor to their table.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is cultural diplomacy,\u201d St.Ange said. \u201cNot governments telling people to understand one another. But people discovering one another for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connectivity that outlasts the holiday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

St.Ange linked tourism to a broader argument about connectivity, noting that improved air links, maritime routes, roads and digital infrastructure do far more than move visitors. They connect businesses to markets, families to one another, and students to universities.<\/p>\n

A new air route, he observed, is not simply a tourism statistic. It can become an economic corridor. \u201cThe person who visits as a tourist today may return as an investor tomorrow. A student may return as a researcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

For small island states, the stakes are especially high. St.Ange cited World Bank figures showing that around 21 percent of Seychelles\u2019 GDP and 27 percent of its employment are concentrated in tourism-related industries. The relationship between tourism and national prosperity, he said, is not theoretical \u2014 it is visible every day in the hotel worker, the taxi driver, the fisherman supplying a restaurant, the farmer, the musician, and the family running a guesthouse.<\/p>\n

How much value actually stays home?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here St.Ange turned reflective, and pressed his audience to rethink what success looks like. Visitor numbers matter, he acknowledged, but they cannot be the only measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need to ask: How much of the value created by tourism stays in the country? How many local businesses benefit? How many young people find good careers? How much of our culture is protected and celebrated?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The truth, he added, is that tourism depends on the very things it can destroy if poorly managed \u2014 beaches, oceans, forests, wildlife, heritage and communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cA hotel can be built in a few years. A coral reef takes generations to develop. A tourist can leave tomorrow. The community remains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sustainability as the condition for growth, not its enemy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

St.Ange rejected the familiar framing that pits environmental protection against economic ambition. Citing the World Bank\u2019s warning that Seychelles\u2019 GDP could be more than 6 percent lower by 2050 without sufficient action on environmental and climate-related risks, he argued that sustainability is precisely what allows growth to continue. The choice is not tourism or the environment. We need both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The real question, he suggested, is how destinations can create more value from tourism while placing less pressure on the resources tourism relies upon \u2014 through cleaner energy and transport, reduced waste, protected biodiversity, and development that fits within a destination\u2019s environmental limits.<\/p>\n

But sustainability is not only ecological. Communities, he stressed, cannot be spectators in their own tourism industry. They must be participants, decision-makers, business owners and beneficiaries. The same applies to culture, which \u201cbelongs first to the people who live it\u201d and should never be reduced to a product packaged for visitors.<\/p>\n

Why difference is worth protecting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In one of the address\u2019s sharpest observations, St.Ange warned against the quiet cost of global sameness. The more connected the world becomes, he argued, the more valuable its differences become.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople do not usually cross oceans to experience exactly what they have at home,\u201d he said. \u201cThe future of tourism should not be about making every destination look the same. It should be about allowing every destination to remain unmistakably itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diplomacy without a negotiating table.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Closing his address, St.Ange returned to his central claim: that tourism moves more than money. It moves ideas, traditions, knowledge and stories \u2014 and, sometimes without our noticing, it changes attitudes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when much of the world is being encouraged to retreat into camps, tourism asks us to cross a border. When we are told to fear difference, tourism gives us the opportunity to experience it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His ambition, he told delegates, should be shared widely: a tourism sector that creates prosperity without sacrificing the future, connects economies without erasing cultures, and opens nations to the world while protecting what makes them unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can do that, tourism becomes much more than travel. It becomes diplomacy without a negotiating table. Education without a classroom. Trade with a human face. And ultimately, a bridge between nations \u2014 carrying not only travellers, but understanding, opportunity and hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

About Alain St.Ange<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ambassador Dr. Alain St.Ange is a Seychelles-born tourism leader whose career spans hotel operations, national tourism marketing, regional destination-building, government leadership, and international advocacy. A former Minister of Tourism and Culture and CEO of the Seychelles Tourism Board, he is a recognised figure on the international speakers circuit and the subject of the biography A Life in Tourism. He is also a published author whose books \u2014 including Alain St.Ange My Journey \u2014 An Autobiography, Alain St.Ange My Journey \u2014 Life & Times in Politics, Seychelles What Next?, Seychelles The Cry of A People, Alain & Ginette St Ange \u2014 Family Ties, and Seychelles Remembers Karl St.Ange \u2014 chronicle Seychelles\u2019 history, political evolution, tourism development, and family legacy, driven by his belief that understanding where we come from deepens our appreciation of who we are.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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