As a candidate for the position of Secretary General of UN Tourism, I am honored to support the important work of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre in Jamaica and other parts of the world and contribute to this critical effort with learnings from my own experience. I had the hard job of guiding the tourism industry of Greece through the COVID-19 pandemic as Minister of Tourism and we did that by leveraging the power of data and that excites me to share my vision of a UN Tourism Resilience data centre.
Before joining public service, I worked for years as a software engineer leading digital transformation and data analytics projects for many complex organizations so as a Minister of Tourism at a time when it was essentially illegal to travel, my natural reaction was to base my strategy on data and technology.
As I reflect on the experience I am increasingly convinced that modern technology and specifically big data analytics and predictive AI are keys to the resilience of tourism destinations. Resilience in tourism is not a passive concept—it is built through foresight, informed decision-making, and continuous adaptation.
Specifically, in my view, Resilience is built over four key phases: preparedness, management, recovery, and ongoing adaptation. Big Data analytics plays a pivotal role in each of these phases, offering insights and solutions that enable us to better navigate both known and unknown risks.
The need for collaboration and shared knowledge has never been more critical. As the leader of the global tourism community it is UN Tourism obligation to strengthen the global tourism sector’s resilience by facilitating critical data and best practices equitably across all member states. This is why I advocate for the creation of a UN Tourism Resilience Data Centre—a centralized hub designed to collect, analyze, and disseminate data that will help countries, particularly those in vulnerable regions, enhance their preparedness and response to crises.
Such a Data Centre would be a powerful resource, providing a platform where member states could access the most up-to-date data, forecasts, and insights on various tourism risks, including climate-related events, economic downturns, health crises, and geopolitical challenges. By pooling resources and data from various sources—governments, the private sector, NGOs, and research institutions—the UN Tourism can serve as a repository of best practices, predictive models, and crisis management tools that could be leveraged by countries around the world.
One of the core functions of the Data Centre would be to monitor key tourism indicators, including tourist arrivals, air capacity, bookings and cancellations, economic impact, and environmental and health indicators, and make this data available in real-time. As a UN agency, UN Tourism will seek to exchange data an insights with other UN organizations such as the World Health Organization. This would allow destinations to detect emerging threats, and optimize their resource allocation in response. For example, a small island nation in the Caribbean could benefit from real-time weather data and predictive analytics regarding storm surges or hurricanes, while also accessing tourism flow or capacity data to assess how a storm might affect their sector before it hits. Another simple example would be real-time monitoring of sentiment in social-media posts and cross this data with real-time flight search and booking data to assess the real effect of social unrest on a destination’s appeal to tourists and how this varies from market to market.
The UN Tourism Resilience Data centre would not just offer the data, our internal and external consultants should also interpret the insights and deliver actionable data-led strategic plans to Member states.
We should seek to provide a platform for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and actively support forums and events such as this Tourism Resilience Conference so countries can share their own data-driven experiences, lessons learned from crisis events, and successful recovery strategies, ultimately fostering a global culture of resilience. A key advantage here is that such a collaborative approach would enable countries to avoid “reinventing the wheel” during crises and instead work together to implement proven, data-backed solutions. The Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre have already set the tone for this global collaboration and UN Tourism should be more actively working to make it a reality.
UN Tourism is the only UN Agency in which academia and private sector entities can support Member States as affiliate members. This affiliate membership engages some of the most brilliant talent in research, tech companies and tourism operators and multilateral institutions and yet it the current leadership of UN Tourism is not tapping into this incredible brain trust. Our affiliate membership also has a wealth of data to contribute as it includes online travel agencies, insurance companies, and transportation providers, tech and data providers. Academic institutions and research organizations can lend their expertise in data science, climate modeling, and tourism economics to ensure the information is both accurate and actionable. We already have the technological expertise and innovation necessary to collect, analyze, and interpret the data and all it needs is professional project-mangement and leadership.
UN Tourism should also be instrumental in ensuring financial backing for this project from institutional, private and public investors in the research and development of advanced data analytics tools that can better predict, respond to, and manage crises in the future. Adequate funding and the speed and agility in allocating resources where and when they are needed are also critical to UN Tourism’s support for the resilience of its Member States and the reason for my proposal of a Global Tourism Resilience Fund.
Conclusion: A Global Data-driven Strategy for Tourism Resilience
There are many external factors effecting global tourism and big data, combined with predictive ai can be applied to each of the pillars of resilience: Preparedness, management, recovery and ongoing adaptation of product and process. Data can save livelihoods and even lives. One of the most pressing challenges facing tourism today is the climate crisis. Climate is a global phenomena but if effects are particularly felt but Small Island Developing States (SIDS), for whom rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and environmental degradation are already jeopardising the present and future of tourism. To protect both our environment and economy, we must apply sophisticated, data-driven strategies to enhance resilience. Big Data can play a transformative role in crisis mitigation, management and beyond.
The creation of a Tourism Resilience Data Centre co-created by UN Tourism, and Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre and financed by a UN Tourism resilience fund would be a transformative step towards building a more resilient global tourism sector. By harnessing the power of Big Data and enabling collaboration across borders, we can ensure that nations are better prepared for climate crises and other challenges, ultimately minimizing the impact of such events on tourism, economies, and local communities.
As the tourism industry faces the challenges of climate change and future crises, I believe the time has come for global cooperation through initiatives like the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre, the Annual Global Tourism Resilience Conference and a co-created UN Tourism Resilience Data Centre. Our joint efforts will support the growth and sustainability of tourism and strengthen the resilience of the communities that depend on it.
Please visit:
Our Sponsor