We all know about the development opportunities that tourism offers, which are really genuine and positive if well managed. But we also know the negative impacts and the price to pay for that reality.

It is NOT possible to always take the numbers upwards, because the figures have a ceiling or a cap that can be natural or generated. It is not feasible in practice to always project numbers upwards because unlike theory, where we can simulate to infinity, reality tells us about finite numbers and figures.

Also because the impacts can be so detrimental that they can even minimize the successes that can be achieved.

There are cases where the improvements and advances that can be achieved lead in practice to final results that are not the best, or may even be worse than the initial situation. This is due to the excessive increase in demand and exploitation generated by the progress referred to in the beginning.

Several concrete examples for Tourism:

• The number of travel tickets to an area X is reduced, and in the end so many people travel that the negative impacts and the environmental and social saturation of the place are greater than the economic benefits that are achieved. YES, we are talking about sustainability and its necessary balance will be affected.

• Aviation will adopt green or more ecological fuels. We also know that there will be an increase in potential travel towards 2030 and the impacts will be even more overwhelming and environmentally damaging. Here green fuel would be a way to minimize all the damage that has been and will be caused given the above projections.

• The cruise industry kills itself to sell us a theoretical and idyllically sustainable reality but in practice we know for a fact that it is another fallacy. The famous liquefied natural gas (LNG) with which the new ships move is terribly harmful to the environment and the cost of being able to connect in the ports is transferred to the ports themselves and is not assumed by the companies that will make use of this reality.

• An overcrowded and crowded beach, which is not at all sustainable and personally I do not find it at all pleasant, is the reality that abounds today in many places.

• Investments in infrastructures to support the activity. As in many cases they come from sources of financing and/or foreign investment groups that end up taking what is produced to the place of origin of the investment, not remaining in the "exploited" place. There are estimates that in many cases more than 60% of these capitals leave the destination where they were actually generated.

It is well known that tourism generates negative impacts on the destinations where the activity is developed, but we ignore this detail and many destinations still continue to bet on quantity over quality. Quantitative over qualitative.

This detail is not minor because aiming at quality is much more difficult from the management point of view. This implies better planning, improving infrastructures, generating adequate training for those who want to provide the products and services to be offered, the need for proper articulation and management among stakeholders, making the entire offer accessible, and much more.

We had a golden opportunity with the pandemic, which "revolted" all of us equally. In theory it was touted as a possible paradigm shift that never actually happened. Reality shows us that by omission in many cases, by necessity in many others, or by simple decision, we opted for more of the same.

If we cannot make an introspection and critical analysis of what we do, what we want, what we should do and what we can really do, we will continue to have what we have today and under the slogan of "more for more" translated into more tourism with more damage to the environment.

In this scenario, sustainability will continue to be a fallacy and a nice utopia for tomorrow... the problem is that we cannot afford this reality.

When a new year starts, the forecasts about what is coming and what will happen to Tourism multiply and personally, and I say this with great respect, I believe that it is not necessary to be a great guru to be able to define several of the aspects through which the activity will go through.

We tried?

Great and more advances in Artificial Intelligence to support and develop the activity in all its facets. If we do a clear mapping of the traveler, we will see that advances will focus on improving experiences both for those who require them and for those who offer them. This involves communications, means of payment, comfort in their accommodation, facilitating these experiences, augmented reality, transportation and much more. All eventualities that involve studying and analyzing the points of contact between travelers, operators and destinations in order to resolve them efficiently.

We will continue to focus on the so-called silver generation or, in “Creole”, people over 50 who are the ones who have the most money and availability to travel whenever they want, which directly affects the deseasonalization of the activity.

Address the new generations based on information and communication technologies in all their variants, since they are the ones who use these means the most. Social networks will continue to command, influence and inspire generations that are very sensitive and prone to permanent connectivity with a constant advance, appearance and disappearance of networks that will compete for these increasingly locatable generations.

Sun and beach and urban destinations will continue to triumph, even if other rural and different environments want to be developed. As long as the amount of supply and necessary infrastructure is not resolved, it will be a nice intention.

The Destination Management Organizations (OGD) will bet on a greater incorporation of the available technologies to be able to better manage tourism activity. And that implies more technology, more training, better processes to be able to take advantage of these improvements, use of Big Data and a necessary capacity to extract, transform and make available that data in forms of usable information and knowledge.

Need for new legislation that provides security to all parties involved because if more and more data is generated and there is more and more availability of sensitive information, it is logical that new reference frameworks will have to be prepared that are not contemplated by the existing ones in the present.

To the famous story of “Chinese Tourism” we can add that of “Hindu Tourism”, to the extent that their middle classes can increase, there are also more than 1.4 billion people who could travel at some point.

Was surprised?

Surely not, because as I have been commenting since the beginning of this article, the paradigm is the same. We are on our way to more of the same but enhanced by the possibilities of technology that is increasingly advancing.

Without a doubt, new things will appear and we will continue to preach a necessary and urgent sustainability, and new paradigms for the activity, but on the current paths we are not doing very well.

We must sit down to exchange and think about new ways to approach and develop an activity that, as I always say, is beautiful and challenging. It is not an activity for enlightened people; It is an activity that must be analyzed and rethought collectively, seeking the common good and based on the true possibilities of each case. This will surely imply resignations, including economic ones, which I don't know if we are willing to assume. If we do not do so, we will continue to hear political and socially correct speeches that lead to the fallacies to which I referred.

As always, I advocate for these spaces of exchange and welcome all contributions and different perspectives in order to have better Tourism for everyone. A tourism that is truly quality and not just quantity.