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Tourism ministers from Croatia, Egypt, Türkiye, South Africa and Malta challenged how governments measure tourism success at the WTTC Global Summit in Valletta on Thursday, October 8, 2026. Croatia argued against adding more peak-season visitors, Egypt defended substantial growth potential, and South Africa called for easier access and stronger recognition of tourism as economic policy.
During the discussion moderated by Richard Quest, ministers debated overtourism, visitor taxes, investment, and whether local communities receive enough benefit from the industry. Malta emphasized residents’ quality of life, while Türkiye urged policymakers to assess capacity destination by destination. The exchanges exposed competing priorities for global tourism: attracting more travelers, increasing earnings, protecting destination identity and ensuring that growth improves life for the people who live there.
The session, “Enabling Growth through Public-Private Partnerships,” featured Malta’s Tourism Minister Jo Etienne Abela, Croatia’s Tourism and Sport Minister Tonฤi Glavina, Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy, South Africa’s Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille, and Türkiye’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy. see.news
Quest quickly pushed the conversation beyond the comfortable language of cooperation. Do destinations actually need more tourists? Does tourism command enough respect around the cabinet table? And what does sustainability mean when almost everyone claims to support it?
The answers revealed an industry whose ambitions increasingly depend on where, when and how growth happens.
Croatia: More earnings, fewer peak-season pressures
Glavina offered one of the panel’s clearest positions: Croatia does not need additional tourists during its busiest season.
It does, however, want tourism’s benefits throughout the year.
That distinction matters for businesses whose earnings depend heavily on a short summer window, workers seeking stable employment, and communities experiencing intense seasonal pressure followed by quieter months.
Glavina described a shift toward year-round tourism, changes to the accommodation model and destination planning based on carrying capacity.
Under the approach he outlined, destinations must assess practical limits, including energy demand, waste management, traffic and parking. These are the everyday pressures that determine whether tourism remains manageable for the people living alongside it.
The purpose is to identify those limits before residents reach a breaking point.
He also pointed to a more revealing measure of success: tourism revenues, business profits, salaries and community benefits can rise even when visitor numbers change relatively little.
For Croatia, the ambition is to earn more from tourism while making destinations work better for residents.
Egypt: There is still room for many more visitors
Fathy approached the same question from a very different starting point.
Egypt, he argued, has the diversity and capacity to welcome substantially more visitors. Concern about overtourism should not obscure the opportunities still available across the country.
His answer rested on distribution. Different tourism experiences can attract different travelers to different places, supported by marketing, tour operators and technology.
He identified artificial intelligence as one tool for connecting visitors with that broader offering, prompting a lighthearted intervention from Quest about being the first panelist to mention AI.
Behind the joke was a serious distinction. A country may have considerable room for growth while individual attractions or destinations still require careful management.
Fathy’s position was that Egypt’s varied tourism assets provide scope for expansion, provided development and visitor distribution accompany promotion.
The contrast with Croatia was striking. One minister was explaining why his country did not need more summer crowds; another was explaining why his country could welcome far more travelers.
Both were making a case for managing tourism according to local conditions.
Türkiye: Capacity must be measured destination by destination
Ersoy similarly resisted treating an entire country as though it had one tourism capacity.
Türkiye contains destinations at different stages of development, he explained. Some face pressure, while others can still accommodate growth.
The question must therefore be asked destination by destination.
His remarks also linked tourism’s performance to its position within government. He described Türkiye’s decision to treat tourism as a strategic sector, bringing stronger coordination across ministries and drawing on private sector experience.
In this account, tourism development reaches well beyond hotel construction and advertising. Transport, cultural heritage, regulation and investment all shape the visitor economy.
Ersoy also described mandatory sustainability requirements for accommodation businesses and the use of tourism income to support cultural and archaeological heritage.
The assets attracting visitors require continued protection, he argued, and tourism should help finance that work.
South Africa: Send us the tourists you cannot accommodate
De Lille brought humor to the discussion of crowded destinations, suggesting that countries with tourists they did not want could send them to South Africa.
Her broader point was more consequential: tourism ministers should spend less energy competing only with one another and more effort making their case against other sectors seeking government attention and funding.
For South Africa, access and perceptions remain important parts of that task.
De Lille described tourism as a form of soft power, allowing visitors to experience the country firsthand and judge it beyond political narratives or negative impressions.
Her strongest argument, however, concerned the way governments understand the industry.
“Tourism policy is economic policy,” she said.
The sentence captured a frustration shared across the panel. Tourism may generate employment, investment and income, yet ministers still find themselves repeatedly explaining why it deserves serious consideration.
De Lille argued that this work cannot be occasional. Tourism ministers must keep demonstrating the sector’s value until it becomes part of the government’s wider economic thinking.
Why does tourism still have to fight for respect?
Quest pressed the ministers on the gap between political praise and practical support.
National leaders may celebrate tourism, he suggested, while cabinet discussions give greater weight to health, education, transport and other portfolios.
Fathy acknowledged the need for persistent advocacy, including cooperation with fellow ministers and evidence showing tourism’s direct and indirect benefits.
There is also a risk that a successful tourism industry becomes taken for granted. If visitors continue arriving, governments may assume the sector will keep delivering without the same attention given to industries facing more visible difficulties.
Glavina said the pandemic had made tourism’s importance more apparent. When travel stopped, economies discovered how much activity depended on it.
Abela offered a whole-government perspective. Infrastructure and public services that improve daily life for residents can also strengthen the visitor experience.
The discussion exposed a recurring challenge: tourism depends on decisions taken across government, while its minister may control only part of the machinery needed to deliver them.
An airport connection, a visa process, a functioning road or reliable waste collection can influence tourism as directly as a marketing campaign.
Visitor taxes: Useful contribution or barrier to travel?
The debate became particularly practical when Quest raised taxation.
Fathy warned that repeatedly adding charges can undermine the income governments hope tourism will generate.
De Lille described negotiations over the cost of a digital visa system, arguing that easier entry should not be weakened by fees that discourage travelers.
Her position was that governments should make visiting easier and assess charges in the context of the wider economic activity a traveler can generate.
Abela added an important qualification. Residents are entitled to expect tourism’s benefits to be shared, and visitor contributions can have a legitimate role.
For him, the conditions were transparency, predictability and responsibility. Travelers should understand what they are paying for and receive value, while residents should see improvements in their quality of life.
The exchange showed why tourism taxation cannot be assessed simply by the money collected. Its effect on demand, and the use of the proceeds, also matter.
Sustainability has to mean something people understand
Few subjects drew more skepticism than sustainability itself.
Quest challenged the ministers to move beyond reassuring language. De Lille said the term had become overused and needed clearer meaning within travel and tourism.
Glavina offered an explanation grounded in everyday life: future generations should be able to earn a living from tourism, just as today’s generation does, and preferably under better conditions.
That requires protecting the value inherited from earlier generations rather than consuming it all now.
His argument extended beyond environmental measures. If tourism damages quality of life so severely that residents leave, a destination risks losing part of what made it attractive.
Fathy advocated measurable targets for different parts of the industry, followed by implementation and continuous monitoring.
De Lille pointed to aviation fuel and reducing emissions as an example of where the discussion must become practical.
Abela approached sustainability through identity. Beaches, landscapes, heritage and welcoming people are tourism assets. Protecting them is essential to the business itself.
A frustrated local population, he suggested, can eventually change the experience visitors came to enjoy.
That gave the debate a human dimension. A destination’s appeal depends partly on whether the people living there still feel comfortable welcoming guests.
Residents’ support cannot be taken for granted
Abela acknowledged that even a small minority of visitors behaving disrespectfully can create concern within a community.
Governments, he said, have a responsibility to listen to residents and enforce rules before problems escalate.
Glavina likewise argued that destinations must get ahead of a possible backlash. Communities need to feel tourism’s economic benefits without seeing their daily lives steadily deteriorate.
This requires an ongoing balance. There is no permanent point at which a destination can declare the job finished.
Businesses may be performing well while residents struggle with congestion, housing pressures or the changing character of their neighborhoods. Those experiences also belong in the assessment of tourism success.
What should WTTC do next?
Asked to identify priorities for WTTC, the ministers called for investment, stronger skills development, shared learning and closer cooperation between governments and businesses.
De Lille wanted public and private partners to help design training that reflects the sector’s actual employment needs, including the changes brought by technology.
Abela emphasized protecting investment and the jobs that depend on it.
Fathy highlighted the challenge of maintaining diversity and authenticity while supporting investment and development.
Glavina urged businesses and governments to make tourism more beneficial and acceptable to local communities.
The panel produced no single growth formula. Egypt and Türkiye see substantial opportunities to expand. Croatia wants to spread activity across the year and increase its value. South Africa wants fewer barriers to visiting. Malta wants to protect both investment and residents’ quality of life.
What connected their positions was a more demanding definition of success.
The next tourism record will be judged by more than how many people arrive. It will also be judged by what they contribute, how destinations manage their presence, and whether residents still welcome the next visitor.
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