2023 was a record year of arrival numbers and business for many travel and tourism destinations. Indications are for 2024 this may be exceeded, not counting geo politics of course.
2023 will be in the tourism books as a year of rage, wars, uncertainty, and unspeakable violence.
The world finally agrees. The dangers resulting from climate change are real. They now threaten entire island countries relying on travel and tourism to disappear. Can sustainable tourism be practiced from a tourism business point of view? How can SMEs contribute, or maybe they simply cannot?
What was achieved at COP 28 in Dubai?
Saudi Arabia seems to be getting it. The Kingdom has set an example in 2023 in so many different ways. In a country where the majority of adults are not older than 30, the kingdom is on a path forward with speed, money, and a vision behind it like no other destination ever was.
Young people not only in Saudi Arabia are ready to take the helm in our industry, but did older people prepare them for it?
Today Mona Naffa was awarded the Tourism Hero status by the World Tourism Network.
WTN Chairman Juergen Steinmetz said when congratulating her: “I am so proud to present Mona with this award. For me and many others, Mona has been an inspiration not only as a professional in the travel and tourism industry, but she will go into the tourism history books as the first leader in our sector to openly speak out on the Gaza situation.”
Mona is an American living in Jordan. She represented Expedia in Jordan for many years and is a known leader in our industry.
She said: “Sharing the narrative of the Palestinian people and sharing the importance of Justice, Humanity, and Peace for All.
Silence is not an option anymore. Growing up as a first-generation Arab American and now residing in Jordan and witnessing the oppression of the Palestinian people, (my mother’s family were uprooted from their homes in 1948). I sat quietly for years knowing our story but now I feel compelled, convinced, and confident to share the narrative of the Palestinian People and proud to be one of them!
May God Bring Us Peace and Prosperity in the New Year 2024!
This brutal war between Israel and Gaza is overshadowing media coverage on everything in the world, even the ongoing and still very deadly Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine is still screaming, Gaza is screaming, and so is Israel
Travel and tourism, the largest world peace industry has been “speechless” with only a few speaking out on the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Our large travel and tourism organizations, which claim to lead tourism remain quiet because of fear it may get some people upset and cost business. After all, it’s all about money.
A loud condemnation to support the innocent Israelis killed, and others kidnapped when they were attacked by a brutal gang of Hamas murders on October 7 remains outstanding by many of our travel and tourism leaders, causing rage in Israel.
Travel and Tourism came to a standstill in Israel days after tourism broke all records earlier this year. Israelis were traveling the world in tremendous numbers and to new destinations, such as the UAE. They now stay home fearing antisemitic attacks abroad.
Western sanctions had done little to discourage Russians from traveling, they just went to other destinations, like the newly established non-stop flight from Moscow to Cuba, or a massive number of flights between Russia and Dubai. President Putin just visited the UAE and showcased that sanctions are not working.
Will the Hamas war be an opportunity for tourism destinations in South America, the Caribbean, or Africa for example?
There are no winners in a conflict. Travel and tourism stability relies on peace and security, and violent and fragile situations in the world will always have a direct and often sudden impact on our sector.
South Africa today filed an application at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of Genocide in their response to corporate punishment against the people of Gaza. Israel calls it self-defense, in response to a certainly brutal attack against its people by Hamas terrorists.
Tourism now has a UN-approved resilience day after an extraordinary initiative by the Hon. Edmund Bartlett from Jamaica who started the Global Tourism Resilience movement. He recently called for a tourism resilience fund.
2023 was a year attacking press freedom around the world with a record number of journalists killed or imprisoned in the process.
Speaking out on what is right or wrong has consequences, even in many Western countries such as Germany or the United States, on Facebook, Twitter, or social media, and of course, it has consequences in business.
Perhaps AI is taking over and journalists are no longer needed in the future, and AI could be programmed to control public opinion.
Alain St. Ange, VP of International relations for the World Tourism Network says:
The tourism industry, yes ours and yours, needs peace for its continued consolidation, and the world, our world, and your world needs peace, real peace for more conducive progress.
St. Ange was the former minister of tourism for Seychelles
Antisemitism
Speaking out against the Israeli government is misinterpreted as antisemitism against the Jewish people, which is ridiculous.
Tourism is a business based on curiosity and to learn from cultures, people, and religion. As former UNWTO Secretary General Dr. Taleb Rifai, and Louis D’Amore, founder of the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism often said, tourism is a custodian of world peace.
I strongly believe our sector should not remain voiceless.
Juergen Steinmetz, Chairman World Tourism Network
“I decided not to remain voiceless or impartial. Sometimes when a red line is crossed you have to say stop, also or maybe especially to friends. I have many friends also in Israel, in the Arab World and they are my friends now and also in the future. Taking a stand on something is not equal to being against someone or something.”
Bethlehem in Palestine 5 miles from the Israel border is a town relying on travel and tourism and had to cancel Christmas this year. Bethlehem is also seen as the place where Jesus Christ was born, and the holy land for more than 2 billion Christians. Tourism as the main industry is facing tremendous challenges, but there are small challenges within the big picture threatening this region.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church Bethlehem used to speak in front of Christians who traveled to Bethlehem to celebrate peace and the birth of Jesus for Christmas in December.
This year he spoke out in a church in front of the Christian community in Bethlehem.
His speech was powerful and moving, and relevant also to the global travel and tourism world.
On December 23 he said, or better screamed to the world:
We are angry… We are broken…
This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.
More than 20,000 were killed. Thousands under the rubble still. Close to 9,000 children were killed in the most brutal ways. Day after day after day. 1.9 million displaced! Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. A genocide.
The world is watching; Churches are watching. Gazans are sending live images of their execution. Maybe the world cares? But it goes on…
We are asking, could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny too?
We are tormented by the silence of the world.
Leaders of the so-called “free” lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population.
They gave the cover.
Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, but they veiled the truth and context, providing political cover.
And, yet another layer has been added: the theological cover with the Western Church stepping into the spotlight.
The South African Church taught us the concept of “The state theology,” defined as “the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism.”
It does so by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its political purposes.
Here in Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against.
Our very own sacred text. In our terminology in Palestine, we speak of the Empire.
Here we confront the theology of the Empire.
A disguise for superiority, supremacy, “chosenness,” and entitlement. It is sometimes given a nice cover using words like mission and evangelism, fulfillment of prophecy, and spreading freedom and liberty.
The theology of the Empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction.
It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. It speaks of land without people even when they know the land has people – and not just any people.
It calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called the ethnic cleansing in 1948 “a divine miracle.” It calls for us Palestinians to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan, or why not just the sea?
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of us. This is the theology of the Empire.
This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal.
Maybe it is the color of our skin. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of the political equation. Even our kinship in Christ did not shield us.
As they said, if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant” then so be it! We are not humans in their eyes. (But in God’s eyes… no one can tell us we are not!)
The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling! They always take the words of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we are not treated equally. Yet, the other side, despite a clear track record of misinformation, is almost always deemed infallible!
To our European friends. I never want to hear you lecture us on Human rights or international law again.
We are not white – it does not apply to us according to your logic.
In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the Empire had the theology needed. It is self-defense, we were told! (And I ask How?)
In the shadow of the Empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten that the state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans?
We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear: Silence is complicity, and empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and shallow words of empathy without direct action — are all under the banner of complicity.
So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell on earth before October 7th.
If you are not appalled by what is happening; if you are not shaken to your core – there is something wrong with your humanity.
If we, as Christians, are not outraged by this genocide, by the weaponizing of the Bible to justify it, there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and compromising the credibility of the Gospel!
If you fail to call this a genocide. It is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.
Some have not even called for a ceasefire…
I feel sorry for you. We will be ok. Despite the immense blow we have endured, we will recover. We will rise and stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far the biggest blow we have received in a long time.
But again, for those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this?
Your charity, your words of shock AFTER the genocide, won’t make a difference. Words of regret will not suffice for you. We will not accept your apology after the genocide.
What has been done, has been done.
I want you to look in the mirror… and ask: where was I?
To our friends who are here with us:
You have left your families and churches to be with us. You embody the term accompaniment – a costly solidarity. “We were in prison and you visited us.”
What a stark difference from the silence and complicity of others. Your presence here is the meaning of solidarity. Your visit has already left an impression that will never be taken from us.
Through you, God has spoken to us that “we are not forsaken.”
As Father Rami of the Catholic Church said this morning, you have come to Bethlehem, and like the Magi, you brought gifts with you, but gifts that are more precious than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You brought the gift of love and solidarity.
We needed this. For this season, maybe more than anything, we were troubled by the silence of God. In these last two months, the Psalms of lament have become a precious companion.
We cried out: My God, My God, have you forsaken Gaza? Why do you hide your face from Gaza?
In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus became the victim of the very same violence of the Empire. He was tortured. Crucified. He bled out as others watched. He was killed and cried out in pain – My God, where are you?
In Gaza today, God is under the rubble.
And in this Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but on our side of the wall. In a cave, with a simple family. Vulnerable. Barely, and miraculously surviving a massacre. Among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is found.
- If Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza.
- When we glorify pride and richness, Jesus is under the rubble…
- When we rely on power, might, and weapons, Jesus is under the rubble…
- When we justify, rationalize, and theologize the bombing of children, Jesus is under the rubble…
- Jesus is under the rubble. This is his manager. He is at home with the marginalized, the suffering, the oppressed, and the displaced. This is his manager.
I have been looking, contemplating on this iconic image…. God is with us, precisely in this way. This is the incarnation. Messy. Bloody. Poverty.
This child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. While the world continues to reject the children of Gaza, Jesus says: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”
“You did to ME.” Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them!
We look at the holy family and see them in every family displaced and wandering, now homeless in despair. While the world discusses the fate of the people of Gaza as if they are unwanted boxes in a garage, God in the Christmas narrative shares in their fate; He walks with them and calls them his own.
This manager is about resilience.
The resilience of Jesus is in his meekness; weakness, and vulnerability.
The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized.
Resilience because this very same child, rose from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness, and death to challenge Empires; to speak truth to power, and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness.
This is Christmas today in Palestine and this is the Christmas message.
It is not about Santa, trees, gifts, lights… etc.
My goodness, how we twisted the meaning of Christmas. How we have commercialized Christmas. I was in the USA last month, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations and lights, all the commercial goods.
I couldn’t help but think: They sent us bombs while celebrating Christmas in their land. They sing about the prince of peace in their land while playing the drum of war in our land.
Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is this manger. This is our message to the world today.
It is a gospel message, a true and authentic Christmas message, about the God who did not stay silent, but said his word, and his Word is Jesus. Born among the occupied and marginalized. He is in solidarity with us in our pain and brokenness.
This manger is our message to the world today – and it is simply this: this genocide must stop NOW. Let us repeat to the world:
STOP this Genocide NOW.
This is our call. This is our plea. This is our prayer. Hear oh God. Amen.
(eTN): Happy New Year Tourism! Angry, Broken & Screaming? | re-post license | post content
