If playback is interrupted, you can restart it.
DUBAI, UAE —International tourism expert and World Tourism Network executive Dr Aleksandra Gardasevic-Slavuljica of Montenegrobrought a strong message of accountability, destination transformation and community value to the recently concluded Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2026in Dubai.
Speaking at one of the global travel industry’s major gatherings, Gardasevic-Slavuljica challenged destinations and tourism stakeholders to move beyond sustainability pledges and focus instead on measurable action and responsibility.
Her presentation, “The Next Era of Travel Is Not Just Sustainable, It’s Responsible,”focused on what she described as a necessary evolution from declarative sustainability towards concrete accountability across governments, destinations, investors, businesses and other tourism stakeholders.
An international expert in tourism, destination transformation and organisational excellence, Gardasevic-Slavuljica presented sustainability not simply as an environmental or promotional concept, but as a practical instrument for transforming destinations and creating lasting value.
“Responsibility begins where promises end, because destinations cannot live on slogans and good intentions. They need action that creates lasting value,” Gardasevic-Slavuljica said.
From destination promotion to destination transformation
A central theme of Gardasevic-Slavuljica’s address was that sustainability should no longer be treated primarily as a marketing message.
Instead, she argued, it must become embedded in how destinations make decisions, plan investments and manage tourism development.
Sustainable tourism, she said, effectively begins where promises end and concrete action starts.
Her remarks placed particular emphasis on the role of governments. Gardasevic-Slavuljica highlighted the importance of creating stable and enabling environments for responsible tourism development, establishing clear and measurable accountability standards and introducing meaningful incentives for businesses and investors that adopt responsible practices.
She also challenged one of tourism’s most traditional measures of achievement: ever-increasing visitor numbers.
Growth in arrivals — and even growth in tourism revenues — should not by themselves define a successful destination, she said. A more meaningful measure is the value that remains in the local community, together with the satisfaction and wellbeing of residents and the quality of visitors’ experiences.
The message reflected a broader change taking place across the global tourism sector: from pursuing growth for its own sake towards examining who benefits from that growth and whether tourism leaves destinations stronger over the long term.
AlUla provides a powerful example
Gardasevic-Slavuljica brought a particularly valuable first-hand perspective to the Dubai stage by drawing on her professional experience in Saudi Arabia.
She highlighted the development of AlUlaas an example of how a destination can connect its past with its future while carefully managing tourism development and involving local communities in the process.
Of particular significance, she said, has been the involvement of women as destination storytellers and ambassadors.
She highlighted the role of the Rawis, who help communicate the destination’s history, heritage and identity to visitors. Their participation provides a powerful illustration of how local people — including women — can become active contributors to a destination’s tourism story rather than simply observers of its development.
For Gardasevic-Slavuljica, this approach illustrates a wider principle: responsible tourism requires communities to have a meaningful place within the tourism economy and within the narratives through which destinations present themselves to the world.
Her intervention at ATM added a distinctive destination-management perspective to an event where accessibility, international connectivity and rapidly changing traveller expectations were also major themes.
Asia-GCC travel corridor emerges as major ATM theme
Elsewhere at Arabian Travel Market 2026, industry leaders examined the enormous potential of the Asia-GCC travel corridor, arguing that improved accessibility, seamless travel and visa facilitation could make it one of the Middle East tourism industry’s major growth engines.
A panel moderated by Sienna Parulis-Cook, Director of Marketing and Communications at Dragon Trail International, brought together Shahab Abdollah Shayan, Regional Director Asia Pacific at Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism; Aaron Goldring, Senior Economist at Oxford Economics; Frederic Brohez, Chief Operating Officer at Pulse Hotels & Resorts; and Waad Melliti, Senior Business Manager at World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF).
Goldring told delegates that travel from Asia-Pacific into the GCC had reached record levels in 2025, with nearly 165 million overnight guests, representing growth of more than 160% over six years.
India remains an especially significant source market for the UAE, while China has also recorded substantial growth.
Dubai’s efforts to remove barriers for Chinese visitors were highlighted by Shayan, who pointed to visa accessibility as well as measures designed to make the visitor experience more seamless.
These have included enabling widely used Chinese payment systems such as Alipay and WeChat Pay and preparing tourism, retail and other stakeholders to better accommodate Chinese travelers.
Melliti also highlighted expanding travel in the opposite direction, from the Gulf to China. She said arrivals in China from the six GCC countries exceeded 150,000 in 2025, approximately double the 2024 level, with particularly strong increases from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
From the hospitality perspective, Brohez said changing traveller expectations were requiring operators to develop products for consumers increasingly interested in experiential holidays, whether they originate in the GCC, Asia or elsewhere.
Danielle Curtis, Regional Portfolio Director – UAE at RX Global, described the Asia-GCC corridor as a significant opportunity for the travel and tourism sector, pointing to efforts by governments and private-sector organisations to make travel between the regions more accessible and seamless.
Responsibility alongside growth
The discussions at ATM 2026 demonstrated both sides of an increasingly important equation for global tourism: how to unlock new travel demand while ensuring that the resulting growth produces sustainable, measurable benefits for destinations and their people.
It was on the second question that Gardasevic-Slavuljica’s message carried particular weight.
Her contribution moved the sustainability debate beyond broad commitments and towards the practical responsibilities of those making decisions about destinations, investment and tourism development.
As destinations across the Middle East and beyond compete for visitors and investment, her message from Dubai was clear: the next phase of tourism cannot be judged only by how many people arrive or how much they spend.
It must also be judged by what tourism leaves behind — for communities, for destinations and for future generations.
And in Gardasevic-Slavuljica’s formulation, that requires an industry prepared to move from promising sustainability to accepting responsibility.
Leave a Comment