When the World Order Shifts Can Tourism Stay the Same?

When the World Order Shifts

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post calling for a Policy Shifts in Tourism, when the world was reeling from pandemic disruption and there seemed to be, at least briefly, an opening for genuine transformation in tourism. In truth, it was never about tourism, but how we might live better in a world that I saw as rapidly changing, restructuring and with significant headwinds. Travel, and the ability to connect and commune with places and people that make us better humans, more empathetic, and more respectful, has always been an unwavering motivation for my work.

Five years later, the ground has shifted more dramatically than most are willing to admit. The world went back to business as usual, and tourism agencies dropped back into familiar habits making excited posts about growth. For systems thinkers and interdisciplinarians who cannot help but see how things are connected, it's been impossible to unsee and unthink the way the world is changing, breaking down, and restructuring.

The question that emerges now and that demands courage to answer honestly is "What has fundamentally changed in our world, and why does tourism still pretend otherwise?"

If it wasn't clear before, then I should make it very clear now, we are living through the collapse of the post-Cold War global order, and globalisation is in the crosshairs. Tourism, as a child of globalisation will not survive in its current form as the conditions that created it unravel. The assumptions that have powered the expansion of mass tourism, i.e., open borders, stable democracies, predictable supply chains, and the promise of endless growth are all unraveling in real time. Yet tourism organisations continue to operate as if we're still in 2019.

It seems to me that the current denial of changing circumstances requires enormous energy to maintain. Denial is manifested in looking away from what we can see with our own eyes. It's choosing to entertain only those points of view that align with the established status quo. Yet our democratic institutions are failing. There is declining trust in governments (and its lower in regional and remote areas), international cooperation is fracturing or being defunded, misinformation, gaslighting and mistruth is poisoning public debate, and climate breakdown accelerating beyond what scientists have predicted. The courage we need now is to admit that change is already here, ready or not. The challenge we must confront is how should we build readiness and resilience in the communities that have become reliant on tourism?

What Has Stayed the Same: Clinging to a Sinking Ship

Despite everything, the industrial tourism toolkit remains firmly in hand. The same myths I identified previously continue to dominate policy thinking:

• Public assets are being opened up and commodified for commercial gain that is distributed elsewhere

• Large industry interests are controlling policy conversations whilst small businesses and communities are sidelined and are unaware of the way policy is channelling funds to marketing and product development that is largely irrelevant to their businesses

• The discredited assumption that tourism brings universal benefits and trickle-down economics remains the 'go to' justification

• Tourism has been operating without genuine social licence or community consent

• Workspace and organisational silos isolate tourism from housing, climate, and social equity challenges increase the fragility of the places that host visitors

In 2025, mainstream tourism looks depressingly like 2019. It has the same strategies, same metrics, and the same assumptions. The sector appears to have spent more energy trying to co-opt regeneration into its existing practices rather than taking a deep dive into what is actually required to address future shifts. Learning requires opening oneself to new ideas, admitting that the old playbook may be obsolete, and learning to think and see in new ways. It takes courage, but given that most tourism policy is led by industry boards, any kind of radical change to address emerging conditions becomes a political hot potato. Enter at your own risk.

The World Order Has Changed: Globalisation in Retreat

What has changed in recent years is foundational. A response requires more than a policy tweak. The geopolitical architecture that enabled mass tourism as we know it is collapsing, and along with it, the rationale for tourism organised around endless growth and global expansion.

The Democratic Crisis and Rising Authoritarianism

The United States, once guarantor of the liberal international order, is experiencing democratic collapse. While I am no expert in US politics, it's clear that the January 2021 insurrection was not an aberration but a symptom of deeper systemic challenges brought about by neoliberal economic management, a decline in civic education and engagement, accelerated by individualism, marginalisation, competition, and extraction. Institutions were captured by a combination of extremism and oligarchy, the rule of law is eroding, and expertise, and even common sense, has been dismissed as elitism. We have watched as honest civic discourse was poisoned and weaponised through misinformation. The US 2020 election cycle revealed a nation where large segments of the population no longer share basic agreement on reality itself.

And if you think this is just in the US, think again. These processes are present in all western democracies, so don't think "It won't happen here." Now is the time to think deeply, engage and ask questions, be curious to the systems at play - both visible and invisible.

This matters profoundly, even in the seemingly irrelevant sector of tourism. The sector has long assumed political stability, functioning institutions, and predictable governance. Those assumptions are disappearing. When democratic norms fail, everything downstream becomes unstable, such as visa policies, international agreements, consumer confidence, airline capacity and regulatory environment, perceptions of safety, and the very idea that travel promotes understanding and peace.The flow on effects may include any or all of the following:

• Stricter immigration policies resulting in emerging hostility towards travellers from certain countries and cultural backgrounds

• Decline in rules based international law places everyone, including travellers at increased risk

• Travellers needing to pass though global aviation hubs with hostile immigration and welcome policies may rethink their travel, while the restructuring of aviation (which survives on the very narrowest of margins) hangs in the balance.

• The economic burden and unknown flow on effects of tariffs and trade wars, rising unemployment, and cost of living have yet to play out in travel demand.

• (Un)availability of seasonal hospitality workers will increase the vulnerability of places that rely on visa workers

• Overall decrease in perceptions of affordability, safety, and willingness to travel in uncertain times will increase.

Tourism has always been built on the idea of connection and cultural exchange, yet we are now moving towards a world increasingly defined by walls and suspicion.

Deglobalisation: The End of Frictionless Movement

The above has raised key questions in my mind: Is the era of frictionless global movement coming to an end? Are we witnessing de-globalisation? Maybe not by choice, but as an emergent reality driven by multiple forces. If we extend the above thinking, the following possibilities come to mind:

Supply chain disruption (fracturing?) as countries reshore or localise production and reduce dependencies. The "just-in-time" credit-based monetary flows of global logistics that have enabled mass tourism could be replaced by less risky forms of localisation.

Trade bloc formation as the world reorganises into competing spheres of influence. The decoupling of trade blocs, tensions over disputed territories, fragmenting alliances all signal a world pulling apart, not together. It's not a stable environment to be promoting global travel but may provide opportunities at home.

Border security is likely to accelerate. Climate migration, economic instability, and political volatility may drive nations to restrict movement. The assumption that tourism could continue to grow, passenger numbers will increase, and new markets emerge are assumptions that should be questioned, if not seen as absurd, in this global context.

Economic nationalism is on the rise with implications for international cooperation. When nations prioritise resilience over global growth, local over global, self-sufficiency over interdependence, the entire logic of tourism growth model collapses.

These disruptions have been on the horizon for systems thinkers but not in the mainstream tourism sector. Today, these are structural shifts and challenges that I raise, not to be alarmist, but because taking a clear-eyed view and building resilience is a responsibility, not a choice. Globalisation as we knew it is breaking, its not an aberration but a process that started decades ago, and for some its only just starting to be noticed. New structural forms are emerging. Tourism, which is a product of globalisation, must now reckon with what comes next.

Community and Localisation: A Necessity

In a fragmenting world, the romance of global tourism gives way to a different kind of reality. Community development, place-based approaches and localisation are strategies of collaboration and holding space for what matters in people's lives and in the places they call home.

When international systems fail, communities will become a key source of resilience. If global supply chains fracture, local production will become essential. When the global economy starts to shake, alternative economies and forms of value exchange will be needed. When democratic institutions come under fire, local community governance becomes the last line of defence. When misinformation poisons discourse, local relationships built on trust and genuine communication become the foundation for collective action. This is the context in which tourism will be asked to operate, like it or not. The borderless world we have known is reorganising around the local, the regional, and the relational.

What Localisation Means for Tourism

What I share below are some of the possible scenarios that we may need to consider in the future. It's not because I am a doomsayer, but because I believe preparing for and building resilience are essential strategies in a new tourism toolkit.

The decline of the "international tourist" as the primary market. When long-haul travel becomes more expensive, more complicated, more politically fraught, and less socially acceptable as a result of climate, allocating disproportionate marketing budgets on attracting distant visitors becomes less viable. The future belongs to regional tourism, to domestic tourism, to visitors who can arrive without flying halfway around the planet.

Community sovereignty over tourism decisions. When communities can no longer assume stable external support, they must take control of the systems that affect their wellbeing. This means genuine decision-making power over tourism, not token consultation. It means the ability to say no, to set limits, to define on their own terms what hosting visitors means.

Local ownership and circular economies. When global supply chains fail, communities need local businesses, local jobs, and generating local value. Tourism must strengthen local economies rather than extract wealth which is then distributed to distant shareholders and global corporations. It must create resilience, not dependency. Wealth, not gig economy workers, homelessness, and debt.

Place-based rather than market-driven development. When predictable tourist flows become unpredictable, communities cannot afford to build their entire economy around visitor spending. Tourism must be one thread in a diverse economic fabric, contributing to, but not dominating, local wellbeing.

This localisation is already happening at the edges. Indigenous communities asserting control over their own tourism futures are quietly pulling back from mainstream tourism strategies and instead looking for ways to strengthen their communities using tourism. Rural communities creating visitor experiences that strengthen rather than threaten their way of life (e.g. Flinders Island).

These are not isolated experiments, these are visible examples of the shift that is already underway. They are the leading edge of tourism's evolution.

The Courage to Let Go

So below I share what courage looks like if we are to take this moment seriously. These are observations I have made before (many times!) and am well aware that each time I repeat them, there are a few more with whom they resonate:

• Bravely question the system we have built and whether it is fit for purpose in the future.

• Acknowledge that we cannot sustain a system that is not sustainable

• Understand that we cannot globalise in a de-globalising world

• Respect community needs when communities will be an increasingly important source of genuine resilience.

The above are painful acknowledgements, especially for those whose careers, identities, and livelihoods are bound up in the old system. I understand. It can trigger a sense of loss, grief, anger or fear. For governments that have organised entire regions and policy platforms around growing tourism, it feels too politically hot to handle. For consultants who have built empires selling the same toolkit, it feels like an existential threat.

Holding onto the old system is cowardice disguised as pragmatism. The brave act is letting go. Letting go of old assumptions and views and embracing what can emerge through localisation, supporting communities, rethinking our values and opening ourselves to the shifts ahead.

Four Years On: The Gap Widens

Four years ago, I wrote about the inability of tourism's institutional structures to see beyond the industrial toolkit. It's a blindspot. Today, that blindspot has become what Anna Pollock has previously called wilful blindness. At this point, clinging to the industrial tourism model is safe (for the moment), but not practical in the long term.

The gap between the policy centre and the edge continues to widen. Official tourism strategies still speak of recovery, competitiveness, sustainable and 'green' growth. Many communities are building alternatives that bypass these structures entirely - creating vibrant visitor experiences and hosting opportunities without engaging in industrial tourism. Edge innovators, like Flinders Island where I work, are demonstrating that regenerative approaches are not only possible but already working. The old system is calcifying while the new one grows in plain sight.

The question is no longer whether tourism will change. Climate breakdown, geopolitical fragmentation, community resistance, and the simple impossibility of sustaining the unsustainable have answered that question. The question is whether mainstream tourism will choose transformation or have it forced upon them through the collapsing of the current organisation.

The Future Belongs to Communities

I want to be clear. This post is not anti-tourism. As stated at the outset, I have never been anti-tourism. I am pro-place which entails being pro-nature and pro-community. In 2021, I wrote about a paradigm shift as emerging possibility. In 2025, I write with more certainty - the old order is dying. Globalisation is in retreat. Democratic institutions are flailing. The language of sustainability has lost its power. The industrial tourism model is looking less and less viable.

Out of adversity there is always opportunity and creativity. (And what gives me energy!) What emerges from this global moment is already visible in community-led initiatives, in localised economies, and in regenerative approaches that centre on caring for place and communities. If our future selves are to look back on this moment, we will see these places and communities as the seeds of tourism's next era, planted and tended by those who had the courage to let go of the old system before the collapse.

So my invitation remains the same as it did in 2021: Join this work because it is the only work that matters. I make no promises, but it does offer genuine hope, rooted in the reality that communities, when empowered and supported, can build futures worthy of flourishing.

Four years on, I stand by everything in "The Policy Blindspot" blog post. But I would add this: the time for warnings has passed. Transformation is already here. The only question is whether we will participate in shaping it or whether we will be swept into the upside-down world about to engulf us.The future of tourism will be about caring for places and strengthening communities. It is simply what the world order now requires of us. The rise of localisation and the demands of this planetary moment are making it visible. We must build what comes next, and not try to protect an unviable past.

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The Tourism CoLab is an online tourism education platform and change-making practice specialising in place based, community-led regenerative development. We work in policy, strategy, change management and leadership to help transition tourism businesses, organisations and communities. Our unique talent is innovative creative thinking, systems work, that generate radical yet practical actions. Learning, experimentation, and reflection must be part of this process. We are globally connected and internationally recognised, working at the highest levels from our work co-ordinating the Local 2030 Island Network’s Regenerative and Sustainable Tourism Community of Practice, advice to the OECD and European Commission, as well as across local and state governments in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Denmark.

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Citation: The Tourism CoLab (2026). When the World Order Shifts Can Tourism Stay the Same?The Tourism CoLab Blog: Field Notes. 26 Jan 2026. Available at: https://www.thetourismcolab.com.au/post/when-the-world-order-shifts-can-tourism-stay-the-same