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ALICANTE, Spain —Ambassador Alain St.Ange, Ambassador-at-Large of the Republic of Seychelles, used his opening address at the Clevenard Open Project 2026 in Alicante, Spain, to call for a fundamental shift in the way tourism success is measured.
Speaking before an international audience at the Palacio de Congresos Alicante, the former Seychelles Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports & Marine said the global tourism industry must move beyond its traditional focus on visitor arrivals and place greater emphasis on the economic, cultural and social value tourism creates for host communities.
“Tourism as an industry is never neutral. It either strengthens a community, or it slowly erodes it.”
St.Ange said international tourism now generates well over a billion cross-border journeys each year, yet much of the industry’s conversation continues to revolve around numbers — how many visitors arrive and how many more can be attracted.
He argued that arrivals alone do not fully measure success.
“Money from tourism spreads in remarkable ways. A visitor’s spending reaches the taxi driver, the market vendor, the family guesthouse and the farmer supplying the kitchen. But spread is not the same as depth, and volume is not the same as value.”
Tourism Data Must Influence Decisions
A central theme of St.Ange’s address was the need to connect tourism data with policy decisions.
“The tourism data we have must relate to the decisions we take. The time is now, because this is what gives us real credibility.”
He said governments and tourism authorities should use data not simply to celebrate record visitor numbers, but to determine whether tourism is creating employment, supporting local businesses, strengthening communities and producing sustainable economic benefits.
“Credibility is the currency that echoes reality ahead of vision statements and manifestos.”
For tourism-dependent economies, particularly small island states, St.Ange said tourism is far more than one sector among many.
“Tourism is not just an industry. Handled well, it is a catalyst for cultural development, environmental protection, sustainable development, youth employment, economic stability and more.”
Culture Cannot Simply Become a Product
St.Ange devoted a significant part of his address to the relationship between tourism and culture.
He said tourism can help preserve heritage, support traditional crafts and encourage younger generations to recognize the value of their cultural identity. But he warned that there is an important difference between preserving culture and packaging it for consumption.
“Are we preserving cultures, or are we packaging them? It is important to understand the difference between the two.”
He continued:
“When a sacred dance becomes a nightly show stripped of its meaning, when a place of worship becomes a backdrop for photographs, when a community’s identity is flattened into a souvenir on a shelf, that is when we’ve stopped exchanging culture and started consuming it.”
For St.Ange, authentic cultural tourism depends on communities retaining ownership of their stories.
“Authentic cultural tourism respects that the community owns its own story. It asks before it markets, it shares the benefit, it listens first.”
He said tourism should strengthen cultural identity rather than dilute it.
“Get that balance right and tourism tells a younger generation that their heritage carries a value the wider world genuinely wants to understand. Get it wrong, and we extract identity the same way we once extracted resources and called it development.”
Tourism Must Empower Communities
Turning to tourism’s human impact, St.Ange said he had witnessed the sector transform communities by stimulating investment, infrastructure and entrepreneurship.
“I’ve seen tourism transform places. A remote village gains a road, then a school, then a clinic, because visitors finally gave someone a reason to invest.”
He also described tourism as one of the more accessible industries for people seeking economic opportunity.
“You don’t always need a degree or capital to participate. A genuine welcome and deep local knowledge carry real economic weight.”
But he stressed that meaningful transformation happens only when local people have genuine ownership.
“Real transformation happens when local people hold genuine ownership, when decisions are made with communities, not for them, and when profit stays and circulates.”
St.Ange said responsibility for creating a stronger tourism industry is shared by governments, businesses, travelers and communities.
“The outcome for a good tourism industry cannot be left to chance. It is built by policymakers who plan for resilience, by businesses willing to share ownership and profit, by travellers who choose culture over consumption, and above all by communities empowered to tell their own stories in their own way.”
St.Ange’s Closing Challenge
Concluding his address, St.Ange challenged delegates to think beyond institutions and consider their own contribution to national development.
“Let us ask ourselves: ‘What can I do to help my country of origin?’”
He described tourism as a resource available to every country in one form or another and urged governments, entrepreneurs and citizens to turn that potential into tangible benefits.
“Tourism is a resource every country has, so let us all, each and every one of us, transform this resource into jobs, into a better economy for our country and into shared prosperity.”
He ended by arguing that the future of tourism will be shaped by those prepared to participate actively in building it.
“Today, the future of tourism is not being handed to us. Tourism is being built by the people who are bold enough to show up for tourism.”
St.Ange’s address at the Alicante gathering placed responsibility, community ownership, cultural respect and measurable economic value at the center of the tourism debate — reinforcing his argument that the industry’s credibility will increasingly depend not on how many visitors destinations attract, but on what tourism ultimately delivers for the people who live there.
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