Explore how global travel and cultural exchange can rebuild trust, expand perspectives and reshape international cooperation in a fractured world at Davos 2026.
At Davos 2026, “Experiencing the World” positioned tourism as an underestimated engine of growth and trust-building: “10% of global GDP… and 375 million jobs” depend on it, yet the sector now operates amid geopolitical friction, climate shocks, and digital risk. Zurich’s Cara Morton noted disruption has become “now norm,” with 20% of assistance cases tied to tensions and extreme weather, and rising demand for real-time safety guidance. Airport operator Martin Eurnekian warned that travel’s growth accelerates when markets are “set free,” citing deregulation in the US, Europe, and Argentina, but argued polarization, airspace closures, and protectionist quotas “put a cap… making everything more expensive.” Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb described tourism as a strategic pillar of Vision 2030, targeting 8–10% of GDP and “122 million” visits by 2030, supported by airport expansion, 150–200,000 new hotel rooms, and “destinations and experiences” built for future travelers. Technogym’s Erica Alessandri emphasized wellness-led demand, projecting that by 2031 “1 in 3 people will choose… a hotel solely based on the wellness offering.” Panelists converged on hyper-personalization and AI to redirect demand beyond overtourism hotspots while keeping “the human… at the destination.”
Hello everyone, and welcome to the panel on Experiencing the World. This is a panel about tourism and travel. My name is Andy Serwer. I'm an editor at large at Barron's and I'm the moderator. I've been covering the markets and economics for many, many decades. And I have to say, sometimes travel and tourism is overlooked as an economic driver, but it is highly significant. 10% of global GDP, or about $10 trillion, is attributed to travel and tourism. 375 million jobs around the world are connected to tourism as well. So is it. It is a force for global good. It can also be, quite frankly, a disruptive force and a force that causes problems. Sometimes. There's a lot going on in this sector also when it comes to things like payments, AI and of course we have to talk about the macro, the global political situation, because that's added some friction into the system. But all these problems, of course, are opportunities. And so to discuss all these things, we have this really excellent panel of really diverse viewpoints and backgrounds and experiences. So I'll go around and introduce the group. We have His Excellency, Mr. Khatib from Saudi Arabia, the Minister of Travel. They're very nice to see you, sir.
Nice to see you. Thank you.
Erica Alessandri, who was on the board of Technogym.
Thank you.
And Martin, you're a Kenyan who is, Let me see exactly what it is. It is the CEO of Corporacion América International from Argentina. And Kara Morton, who is the CEO, Global Business and Operations and member of the executive committee of Zurich Group insurance here in Switzerland. So welcome to you all. Thank you very much for joining the panel. And, Kara, I want to start with you, because I want everyone to talk a little bit very quickly about their job and how it's connected to the business. And what's an insurance executive doing in a travel panel?
Sure. So at Zurich Insurance, we basically we have a global travel insurance company where we focus on the predominantly the leisure insurer. And so we work with a lot of businesses in A, B to B to C environment like Expedia, like United Airlines and banks to basically make sure their customers are insured when they travel.
Right? So in other words, if you get a flight canceled, you did insurance care is the one who sent you your check. So she's a very important person, your Excellency, talk about what you're doing in Saudi Arabia.
Thank you very much. I'm the Minister of Tourism for my position. Explain why I'm here. If you want me to tell you more about it, I'm happy to do so.
Okay. That's what we'll get right back to you about that then. But that's right. Ministry of tourism. That's pretty self-explanatory. Martin, I apologize for botching your last name as well as the name of your company, so please tell us what your company does.
Okay? Corporation America is a company that builds and runs airports from the private sector. Usually in in PGP or concession mode with, national regional governments. We run now 52 airports in six different countries across Latin America, in Europe, looking to expand into Africa and, and the Middle East now, and basically, a part of, of the travel and tourism ecosystem. Right.
Great. Erica, what's technogym and tell us how it's connected to travel.
So Technogym is a leader in smart equipment and solutions for fitness, wellness, sports performance and health and longevity. Obviously wellness is a huge trend, especially in the hospitality sector. We have equipped over 25,000 locations around the world, hotels and hospitality around the world, 100,000 in total, commercial and I'm travelers are more and more looking for wellness experiences. Therefore, I believe we have some good insights on on the sector.
You want to get back to that because it used to be people would just go and lie on a beach and drink heavily, and there's still people who do that, but there's also people who like to stay fit and, you know, do that at the same time. So I want to start maybe with a 30,000 foot question, which is about sort of travel itself and, and what the the biggest trend is in terms of bridging cultures and, creating economic growth. Maybe we'll start with you, Your Excellency, and you can talk a little bit about your vision when it comes to Saudi Arabia and why tourism is so important to the development of the country.
Yeah. Thank you, Andy, for this very important question. When we launched the tourism sector, part of Saudi Vision 2030 as a main and strategic sector, tourism, as you quoted, represent about 10% of the global GDP and 10% of the global jobs. And tourism creates a nice jobs, 45% of the 357 million jobs are occupied by women, and 80% of the jobs are covered by by youth. And therefore, it is the jobs we the sector creates at a global level is good for youth, youth and women. People travel to learn about other nations culture. They travel for business. Like why we are here in Davos this week and they travel for, for for other purposes maybe sport which become very, very, very, very important, reason to travel and therefore, you know, we in Saudi Arabia believe that this is a very promising sector. The sector grow in axis of the global average growth. Only 1.5 billion people only traveled last year as per of the tourism. Latest published report. And this 1.5 billion is only 20 to 25% of the total global population. So you can see the potential. However, there are a lot of challenges that we need to discuss. And we need to talk about, for example, here in Davos or in Toris, where the World Economic Forum is a strategic partner in tourism to address the challenges in the whole ecosystem, starting from the travel companies, airlines, airports, capacity, availability, cost, and hotels and other support services like like technology and the availability of human capital. With all this, and also maintaining the sustainability and the, nature and the beauty that the, the destination is having like here in Davos.
Great. Definitely want to jump off on some of those points. So thank you Cara. You must have a tremendous amount of data at your fingertips over there at Zurich. What are some of the biggest trends that you're seeing right now. Where are the hot spots or what are the things that are the areas that are kind of growing the most?
Yeah. Well, I mean, today's today's global environment is complex. Like whether you're traveling for business or leisure. You know, we have a rising geopolitical tensions, climate volatility, obviously increased digital and cyber risks. And so you know, safety and responsibility is really paramount in ensuring that we can sustain global mobility. Last year we saw like traditionally people use assistance for lost luggage, delayed flights or, you know, medical reasons. And they covered about 80% of our assistance cases last year, but 20% of the cases were around, assistance in geopolitical tension situations like the Cambodia Thailand border, challenges that happened in December and weather events, you know, bushfires, cyclones, etc.. So people are needing assistance for a lot other reasons than traditional reasons. If we look at, you know, we see four major themes and these have really come about since Covid. So the first one is and we talked a bit about like leisure and business travel. The first one is the real blend between business and leisure. And I think that excuse me, employers have a. Excuse me. A duty of care to make sure that their employees are looked after when they're traveling for business. But then where does that stop? And, you know, when they do the leisure. So that's a very big theme. Another one is disruption is now norm like we did we did an assessment of 4000 business travelers in 2025, and 80% of them said that they were disrupted in some way, be it delayed flight. You know, something like that. Over 50% had, you know, more significant challenges. So, I mean, that has been a theme since Covid, but clearly disruption is now part of the travel experience. And I think the third theme is that, you know, since since Covid, we're seeing that people want assistance when they're traveling for, excuse me, things like, okay, I'm, I'm in New York, there's a, there's a protest today. Is it safe for me to do x, y, Z? Right. So people are reaching out for, assistance beyond the norm. That's what we're seeing. People are really concerned about their safety while they're traveling. Right. So I got a frog in my throat.
Yeah. Get some water. It's a little dry. So, Martin, we're talking about friction. Carr was talking about friction and then safety as well. Those two issues must be paramount in your mind when you're looking to build airports. What are some of those some considerations and what else are you looking to know?
Definitely the, the air travel, ecosystem is based upon safety and security. So that's, that's the basis on, how this industry has grown over this year. But on top of all of that and, having a, I think a consensus on, how inclusive, how important and how diverse this industry is, I think it's very important to reflect on, what makes it grow. He said, His Excellency said that, the growth is, compared to GDP growth in line with GDP growth normally. And this is when you when you lack of measures on on how to predict growth, you use GDP growth or GDP forecast to forecast tourism and travel growth. But there have been very clear cases, in our history when growth was accelerated and these were the cases where the industry was set free. You have the US in the 80s decided to deregulate the airline industry, basically let everybody go wherever they wanted without, without friction and without norms that were meant to protect parts of the industry, but were basically putting a foot on top of the industry. And you've seen from there, the next two decades, the US grow far faster than their GDP. Same in Europe in the 90s, the same deregulation that led, any airline, anyone from within the union do whatever they want, basically within the union. And that saw also a jump in growth far beyond a multiplier of the normal growth that you would have seen in terms of, in terms of GDP. I have examples from the country where I'm from, Argentina, the last two years, Argentina decided to open their skies, take out all of the the restrictions on bilateral agreements, and basically let any airline who wanted come in, go wherever they wanted fly domestically. And this has made also a boom in our country. We have we are seeing record numbers of passengers, for the history of Argentina, for the history of the whole country or the whole aviation sector in the country. And, beyond economic regulations, any disruptions that we were discussing before, it's it's a way to stop this now, when we see wars, when we see a country fighting another country and closing the airspace for that country, we have examples in Europe where countries are putting a quota on Chinese flights into their European country because they feel there is, a mismatch because European carriers have to, fly around Russia. So they have to do a far longer flight because of geopolitical tensions. And that is putting also a cap on the industry, because the Chinese flight is far, far cheaper, because it's a shorter flight. But because of that, they are hurting the whole industry by putting a quota on that to protect the national carrier, which makes some sense, but also in, in the in the long term, you're basically putting a cap and making everything more expensive for, for the customer. Right. So I think that in a world that's polarizing, that's, that's creating a lot of tensions, we have always taken, taken the, the freedom to move for granted. And I think we should value it and we should all work for that freedom to stay, because if that goes away, I think the whole industry is in danger.
And you didn't even mention when company countries, excuse me, begin to restrict visas and change those policies, which we've seen a lot of in recent years, right?
Yes, yes. I think this is an industry based on freedom and globalization. And if we lose sight of that, we we can really hurt the industry, right?
I mean, a lot of people have also talked about the end of globalism, and it really hasn't been true, though. So much for tourists and tourism. And this is one strong area in terms of global trade, if you will. It's a form of global trade. Eric, I want to ask you about what are the hot areas of the world, or maybe where your company has been looking to expand its business. What are some trends that you're seeing there?
I mean, definitely the Middle East is, has a huge opportunity in general. The US has for us in terms of wellness, is is also the biggest market. But in general, I mean, we see that for wellness, it's a trend that it's global people, the younger generation, the older generation, everyone is looking to invest into their health in increasing their healthspan, their healthy living. And this applies in every step of their lives. So what we're seeing in terms of, tourism and the different trends is that by 2031 in 3 people will choose, for example, a hotel solely based on the wellness offering, which is quite impressive. We see thematic tourism growing a lot. And this is a great opportunity both to tap into, let's say a new segment, but also, for example, to develop thematic destinations or to, relaunch, a place, for example. This is something that we've done with our foundation and our Wellness Valley project to really leverage on wellness and the heritage and the culture of the region, and promote the region and market it as a sports and wellness destination to attract a whole new segment in this sense.
Right? Right. I mean, that segues nicely over to you, Your Excellency. I'm very curious about what plans specifically you have for Saudi Arabia. You talk about sport. You know, I happen to be a runner and a swimmer, so I'm looking for places with pools, not just leisure pools, but pools where I can swim laps and I travel with friends and we go to races in different running races in different places. So are these some of the ideas that you have and what else?
Let me, share with you some of the global trends that we have. We have we have realized and seen in the last 5 to 10 years. And then I will attend your question one, big, for example, China is a big producer of international travelers, 130 to 150 million, of the 1.5 billion means China, market share is about 10% of the international global market. They used to travel in groups. Now they are traveling in silos. And therefore we need to use technology to reach to them instead of going through, for example, tour companies and, and dmcs etc.. We're seeing, airport expanding their retail and food. And, and we heard how much, for example, Heathrow is making from the, the retail and FMB airport is for airport. But now it became like a destination. People go there and spend a lot of money in retail and FMB in airports. We're seeing a big growth in, in wellness because people wellness market share is very small today, but it is growing in double digits because people became more aware of their health and, and wellness. And they started to travel for, for, for for health. In Saudi Arabia, for example, we are building now like five wellness resorts in the Red sea and in Raya, and, and hotels, hotels used to be a box to stay in and to order your food from their average kitchen. Today, no hotels became like a destination. You go to hotels, you enjoy the nice restaurants, the nice lounges and hotels start to make more money from the working clients instead of the residents. And therefore, you know, what we are building today in Saudi Arabia, is we're building a destinations and, and, and experiences, let me call it experience. Better to describe it to cater for the future travelers, not the not the past travelers. And Saudi Arabia, tourism used to represent about 3% of the economy in 2020. Today, we stand at 5%. Our goal is to reach to 8 to 10% by 2030, 122 million. Domestic and international experience Saudi Arabia, out of which 30 million international arrivals, came to Saudi Arabia last year, 1 million jobs. We created 250,000 jobs in the last five years. And I mentioned the global average, for the women job in the in our sector of at 45%, we stand at 47% in Saudi Arabia for, you know, many women, young people are working in the tourism sector when we take tourism in Saudi Arabia to the 10%, global economic contribution, this will strengthen our economy, make it more resilient and make it more sustainable. And we will share our beautiful culture with with the world. How to do that? We looked at the whole journey in Saudi Arabia and we said, we need more airports. We have a very, state of the art infrastructure today. We're a modern country. However, we need to build more airports and expand the existing airports in order to cater for the 150 million travelers by 2030. We need more hotels. Today, Saudi Arabia is building 150 to 200,000 additional rooms. This is more than any other country in the world and building new experiences and new destinations like the Red sea. The idea where we inaugurated the Six Flags theme park two weeks ago, and the Six Flags theme park. I invite you to come and experience, the biggest in the world. They they they operate. They are operating now the longest and fastest roller coaster. Which I always say, I will never try it. It's very scary.
Roller coaster. Yeah. You need to see her first. You should get a plan through her. Your roller coasters are like that. You love him or hate him, and I'm on your team.
Yeah, but we're looking at the whole journey to make sure that when the travelers visit Saudi Arabia, they find Saudi Arabia a friendly destination. Accessible, safe. And when they leave, they say, oh, I got the maximum value for the money I paid.
Right, right. By the way, we're going to take some questions from the audience, in a little bit. So if you got them, store them up and we'll be ready for you. Martin, I want to go over to you about this airport thing, because that's it really is something. And you're seeing people, designing airports really, instead of, you know, you're talking about a box for a hotel. Before, it was like a passageway to get onto a plane. And it's so much more than that now. I'm even seeing it in New York, which were some of the worst airports around, but they're actually kind of beautifying JFK and LaGuardia a little bit. What are some of the coolest things that people are doing with airports, maybe that you're doing with airports right now to make them experiences?
I think I think that, there are this is a this is a very regulated industry. No, it's not that. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. There are regulations for customs, immigration, security, safety, you name it. But on top of that, a lot of companies are doing, a lot of new things in terms of treating their passengers better and making it a journey. It's been studied that when you travel, the first part of the travel, that of the journey is super stressing to get to the airport, to get your, your check in, to, to know that you can get to your gate all of that time. Stress levels are super high in a person. Once they know that they can make their flight, that they see their gate that's there, that lowers down. And also defenses go down. So you start your journey right there and you are, you're more willing to spend because your your journey has just begun. And airports have taken advantage of that by basically thinking what we do is we think about all the travelers we have and think how we cater for each one. If you travel with your family, what do you need? If you're a businessman, you want to work at the airport. What do you need? If you are? If you are a luxury traveler, you're flying private. What do you need for that? If you have a disability, if you have a hidden disability, such as, autism, what do you need in each case? So we try to build an airport that has a little bit for everybody, and that way it can, enjoy the most and enjoy the most. They spend the most, right?
I mean, you are starting to see some duplication. Like, every airport now has this luxury Prada, Chanel, etc.. Right. And so that becomes a little tiresome. So you really have to look to make it reflect the local country or city and to be differentiated. Right.
It's what we call a sense of place trying to, if you're in Paris, understand you're in Paris, have French food, French, brands, souvenirs and so on. And this is what we do. Whatever we are, I think the, the challenge this is driven by market. Let's say if you if you're a private company, as we are, you are learning all the time how to make the most out of your clients. But the challenge is, after 911, the industry started to treat everybody as a potential terrorist. And it's one out of, few million, probably. So, the industry still has a challenge of finding a way of treating everybody as a normal person. And just whoever has a chance of of not being a normal person. Just an extra check. But but so far as of today, that's that's a part of the friction of the of the travel journey, right?
Yeah. I mean, you want to make people feel safe and encourage travel, but you have to have these safety considerations. It is a real balancing act. I want to go back over to you and ask you a couple questions about insurance. How many passengers, what percentage of passengers actually buys travel insurance, a and B, what other sort of new programs besides just plain vanilla travel insurance are you guys looking into, or are you guys currently do already.
The I mean, it's very difficult to get the percentage of people that actually buy travel insurance because if you look at like a lot of people get travel insurance with credit cards, right? So it's a big thing in America, you know, if you have bank cards or Amex Visa master, it comes with a certain amount of travel insurance. Right? So it's very difficult. And it's also a very country by country because for example, if you're in the European Union, then you're usually covered for medical. You don't need to get medical insurance if you're from Australia or Canada, you do. So it's a very you know, it's a very market by market thing. In terms of, you know, trends, what things I wanted to talk about. And Your Excellency, you mentioned when you talked about, your beautiful culture. One of the things that we are seeing is people wanting to travel more in a meaningful way. And if we look at, you know, some of the, the protests that were in Spain last year around, you know, over tourism, etc.. So we are starting to work with some communities around how we can basically, you know, you talked about the, the tourism and travel is, you know, it's a $10 trillion business, but only, you know, the way that the profit shared is really inequitable. And so we have a real focus on building programs that are going to be, you know, have real social impact and community engagement. So for example, in Latin America, we work with five different countries. In fact, one of the one of the projects we're doing is around the Iguazu Falls and Z Zurich Foundation. Help us. We've put €1 million so far into Latin America. We're in five countries, impacting 30,000 people in the travel industry, and we help them basically engage, you know, how to engage with tourists when they come to the country. We also work, for example, in Indonesia, there's a company called Surfaid, which looks at, giving clean water and health services to isolated communities in Indonesia. And what we find is that our travelers who want to go to destinations like this, Indonesia, they want to find ways to give to the community. So, you know, what we're really seeing is that if we think about, like, not after the fact, if you think about these things before someone starts traveling and you embed in their journey social impact, community engagement type activities, we see the overall experiences a lot more better for, you know, the whole industry,
Right, Erica, I want to pick up on some of that and go over to you. Are you a big traveler, by the way, yourself?
Yes, I am.
Right, right.
It's a big passion.
Yes, I bet it's true. For all.
I mean business.
Obviously we're present in over 100 countries, so you get to visit.
All those places.
I hope one day to to go to all of them. But yeah.
So Cara was talking about getting squirted with water in Barcelona, right. The squirt gun, people, because Barcelona is overrun with tourists. Venice. Yeah. You can't move in beautiful Venice. It's so hard now. You have to go off season or know the back streets or go with the local. I mean, it's getting more and more difficult and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. And there's also this sort of problem, if you will, of the Instagram tourists, which is like, oh, if you go to this city, you have to do that shot, that selfie. And so everyone goes to this place, the same place. No one's really like using their brains and thinking independently. What are your thoughts on that?
I mean, in general, let's say what we see is more like the trend, more like towards, as I was saying, the health. And so like where, where we work and what we do is really to try to differentiate from this type of tourism to help elevate the experience. And that's why we've been creating, since 1996. We've been investing in creating a unique ecosystem to connect different stakeholders, to really follow the journey of, of a user in every aspect of their lives. So whether they're at home or traveling or on on both for business or leisure, which is also difficult, different also in terms of the of of what you need and so on. And so we really believe that, you know, if you put the human at the center and you really help them guide them through a journey that also affects, let's say, the sustainability of of the industry. And in general, when you take care of yourself, then you also tend to take care of the environment. And that we've seen with our different social projects, for example. So how healthy lifestyles and healthy living impact also your behavior in general and also your civic duty or so, what we tried to do and with Technogym, our mission has always been that of helping people living better and longer and healthier, because it's not only important how long you live, but also the quality of the years that you live. And so really, thanks to this, especially in the in the travel industry and in the tourism, we've been promoting and helping partners to really focus on, on an experience rather than what you were mentioning, just, you know, the more of a of tourism, just like checking.
Boxes like, yeah, you know, like it's a bucket list, right. Just did that, did that, did that.
Can I just.
Add something.
To that point? Like I think that this is where AI can really be, advantageous for us, right? We AI we know now is used for trip itineraries or it's used if I'm in a place and it's raining, what do I do with my kids? But I think there's a big potential for us to use it to basically steer people to travel to different destinations, ones that aren't, you know, as popular. Obviously, that will require governments to then make sure that those places have got the right infrastructure, but this will will be able to see, like the wealth be more equally distributed as well. So I think AI and how we use that is key in this area.
That's a great point because, you know, old days search that would give you the five places to go in Buenos Aires, right? Whereas when you're using AI and AI it will be so personalized, it will say, oh, you would like to go to these specific places based on your history. ET cetera, et cetera. And you were talking about Your Excellency having to deal with the Chinese more on an individual level, for instance, rather than collectively in these tours. And I'm wondering what your thought process is, because if you have people only going to three places in KSA, that won't really be the economic driver that you're looking for. You want people to go to different places.
You know, the beauty about tourism is that tourism developed rural areas. It's not like manufacturing. You put a manufacturing plant in one city and you stuck to that city. Tourism. You can spread your, your offering throughout the, the whole country, like here in Switzerland, for example. And Spain, Italy, Saudi Arabia, in France, they choose to focus on, on Paris. And they put everything in Paris, Paris one last year, the best shopping destination by 2 or 2 rice awards. Paris have all the culture and the art and the objects and the Louvre and. And Paris have the Unesco headquarters and and therefore the the overtourism was created by design. You know, they should put push these big organizations to maybe a smaller cities that needs the next visitor to create the jobs and to create the economy of the smaller cities. They have done it in the past. I think they started to face challenges now, and they will definitely face more challenges when we get to 2 billion travelers, maybe 2.5 U. In tourism yesterday is projecting the, number of tourism to grow from 1.5 billion to 2 billion by 2030, adding 500 million to the cities that are complaining about overtourism today will really make the story worse. And therefore, that's why when we, hosted the United Nations General Assembly in Riyadh last November, we discussed this topic, overtourism. We discussed, AI and we all agree, all the, more than 100 million, more than 100. Minister of Tourism and Culture. And to try to, keep the human, we will use the technology. We will use the technology when it is not necessary to have a human. Like when you arrive in the airport, you want to go fast, and you want to have the biometrics and other things to help you to go, to go out of the airport. But when you go to the destination, you want to be served by human, not by by machines or robots. And therefore, you know, AI is a big challenge for our future, for our industry in the future. Overtourism is another topic. And sustainability, sustainability is a big topic. And in Saudi Arabia we establish a sustainability center just to address the three sustainability topics social sustainability, economic sustainability, and environmental sustainability.
Right? I mean, these facilities take water, for instance, those kinds of things. And I guess what you can do in Saudi Arabia, for instance, is have new attractions like Six Flags, but also celebrate some of the older culture as well that you're talking about, and maybe even bringing those two together in some instances.
Absolutely.
And I think, you know, you're you're very fortunate because sorry, I didn't you're very fortunate different to Paris that we just discussed because you're creating all of this now so you can build it all. I mean, you've got all this knowledge and you can build this all AI, everything you know, from the beginning. So I'm really excited for what you're going to be building.
I told you, I want to go there. We'll talk.
After. We all want.
To go, right? Yeah. Did you want to jump in? And we'll go to some questions.
Right. Say that in general, even though we come from different industries that are all tied in now in the hospitality, the the key trend here is personalization, whether it is in the journey within an airport or in the insurance or in general, and how to structure an offering of touristic offering of a country. Or for us today, the key is hyper personalization. People want to feel connected to an experience, to a brand. They have values, they have different culture. It's there are so many, let's say different important KPIs that for a person are important. And so ultimately technology is a great enabler to deliver this hyper personalization. And that's why we can really we've been talking for many years about the experience economy. And it is very true today. I mean, right now we've been basically speaking about this. And so I think that it's very important to keep in mind, the importance of personalizing the experience and tailor it.
Yeah. Questions from the audience, for this panel here. Anyone want to in the, in the business, have any questions they want to ask at this point? We've got one right here.
Thank you. Good afternoon to all of you. My name is Patricia de Lille. I'm the Minister of Tourism from South Africa.
Welcome.
And I have been working very closely with Minister Al-khateeb. And I want to commend him for really working so hard to put tourism firmly on the agenda. My two days that I've spent here, definitely. Minister tourism is sitting at the center of everything that they are discussing here at with, they're talking about investment, about infrastructure, jobs, digital transformation. And as tourism, we we must also move beyond just marketing and promotion. So my question to you, Minister, is that how are you going to ensure that on the agenda of the World Economic Forum, that we continue pushing tourism to be part of that inclusive economic growth, adding to GDP of countries, creating more jobs? And I think Saudi Arabia, with all the gains and all the, the growth, you know, the exponential growth in Saudi, that's a good example to illustrate what is possible with tourism within the broader economic, outlook and future. Thank you.
Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Dear Minister, tourism, without saying, represent 10% of the global GDP. And therefore, when I met with, I've been coming to here for many, many years and, I discussed with Borge, I told him last year, we need to expand the presence of the sector in Davos. And he was very kind to, organize a team from, from with my team in Saudi Arabia to discuss the opportunities. And we put together a document and we signed it, and we announced it last, last November. And to rise and we have been since then, we have been working on expanding the presence of, of tourism, travel and tourism in Davos. And this is a testimony of this is one of the initiatives that come out of this, this this agreement in addition to the research we published and the other initiatives that will, will take place in the future. This is, very important forum, and tourism, bring peace in a time where everybody wants to hear about peace, bring connect people, encourage dialogue. And this is the theme of Davos this year and and create economies and serve a smaller enemies like Africa Latin America Pacific and and and the Caribbean countries and and therefore it is good for peace. It's good for people. It's good for youth. Good for women. 80% of the businesses in travel and tourism are small and medium businesses. It's good for small and medium businesses. It's interact with wide range of sectors aviation, airports, mobility, transportation, hotels, retail, entertainment. When we travel to any city in vacation or business, we we go and shop, we eat, we stay in a hotel. We just want to make sure that, here in Davos and in rice, we want to make sure that all the ecosystem and the players in this, wide range, industry are talking to each other, they know the future, the future, the outlook of this industry. And they design the and personalize the, experiences to satisfy the very demanding new generations. And I think we have been very successful. We need to do more, but definitely we are in the right track.
I like it when one travel minister talks to the other travel minister, right. Like to be there in the room for that. But it also speaks to this partnership and the fact that you've got to work nation to nation. Here I was speaking with Princess Rima, the ambassador from your country to the United States, about partnerships between Saudi Arabia and the United States and how important they are. Do we have other questions? We have one over here for this gentleman.
My name is Fawaz. I'm the chairman and CEO of Philomena. We invest and manage real estate experiences. And we heard, Your Excellency, about the increased number of people who will who will travel. And then I remember a two rise. You talked about visa buy profile because right now with the increased travel, we discriminate, visas for people depending on their nationalities. And I think as we go forward with the increased number of travelers, we need to, sort of give people visas personalized to their personal circumstances, their financial capabilities and so on and so forth. What's the latest on that agenda?
I think, accessibility, is very, very important. It's unfortunately not the case in the US, but, you have to make, travel accessible and easy and affordable, for, for any nation, through not only through visas but also through connectivity. You told you told me, we travel a lot. Yeah, we're in the business. We travel a lot. I visited 122 countries in my life when I went to Palau in the Pacific. It's not connected, you know, 3 or 4 flights a week. It's very, very difficult. You know, you need more frequent flights to a smaller destination in order to increase the accessibility for people to, to, to fly to the new destinations. For example, when I met with my friends in Barbados, they told me how, British Airways, you know, help in increasing the, economy of travel when they start to fly a daily flight from London to Barbados. Right. I believe visa is and, connectivity, which is a much bigger challenge today. And we are and for example, airlines are facing challenges to get the next aircraft. There are 17, 17, 16,000 aircrafts in the in the backlog for getting hold of a new a new plane is a challenge and connectivity is a big challenge.
There are a lot of challenges but a lot of opportunities. And again, there's just so many jumping off points here. We're going to have to wrap things up here, but I hope that everyone looks at this as a jumping off point to continue this conversation. And, and I really love the fact that it's just the reflection of what people care about the most here. And the core of Davos, which is connectivity and bringing people together. So please join me in thanking this wonderful panel and, have a good day.
Thank you.