How Business Travel, Secondary Destinations, and Better Metrics Can Change the Conversation
By Catherine Chaulet, President & CEO, Global DMC Partners
Let’s start with the good news. Tourism is thriving. In 2025, the travel and tourism sector reached 10.3% of global GDP, and tourism spending is growing at twice the pace of overall economic growth, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. That’s millions of jobs create–many without requiring a formal diploma–amilies supported, small businesses sustained, and communities uplifted around the world.
Tourism isn’t just one industry. It’s an ecosystem–accommodation, transport, food and beverage, attractions, travel services–all working together. And the ripple effect extends into retail, construction, financial services, and marketing. When visitors spend, entire economies move. Tourism impact matters, and it’s something worth celebrating and protecting.
So when the conversation around “overtourism” starts to frame visitors as the problem, it’s worth stepping back and asking: are we solving the right challenge?
Reframing the Conversation
No one is dismissing the real pressures that come with high visitor volume—crowded streets, stretched infrastructure, rising housing costs, environmental strain. These are legitimate concerns and they deserve thoughtful solutions. But many of the responses we’ve seen such as blanket tourist taxes, entry fees, visitor capshave largely missed the mark. They treat demand as the enemy, when the real issue is how that demand is distributed.
At the European Tourism Day on January 26, 2026, in Brussels, EU Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas and industry leaders arrived at exactly this point. Their consensus was encouraging: tourism demand is not the problem. The challenge lies in how we distribute it, across destinations, across seasons, and across time slots. The question is no longer whether to welcome visitors, but how to do it thoughtfully. Europe is stepping up to lead this conversation, and that’s a positive development for the entire global tourism community.
The Quiet Power of Business Travel and Meetings
Here’s something that often gets overlooked in the overtourism conversation: business travel, group travel, and the meetings and events sector are among the most valuable, and most manageable, forms of tourism there are.
Think about what a corporate incentive trip, an association conference, or a multi-day meeting actually brings to a destination. These are planned well in advance, organized with local partners, and designed to engage deeply with the community. Business travelers and meeting attendees tend to stay longer, spend more per day, dine at local restaurants, book local experiences, and return as leisure travelers. They fill hotels midweek and during shoulder seasons. They bring spending that flows directly into local economies, not just at the convention center, but at the café around the corner, the boutique down the street, and the transport provider across town.
And there’s a bigger picture here that deserves more attention. Economic stability builds social stability. When tourism revenue supports jobs, education, and infrastructure, it creates the conditions for lasting peace. Communities that benefit from a well-managed flow of visitors are communities with more opportunity, more connection to the global economy, and more reasons to invest in their own future. That’s not an abstraction; it’s something our DMC partners see play out in destinations around the world every single day.
Secondary Destinations and Off-Season Travel: A Win for Everyone
One of the most effective, and most exciting, solutions to overtourism isn’t about limiting where people go. It’s about expanding where they’re invited.
Secondary and emerging destinations represent an extraordinary opportunity. For every Barcelona or Venice, there are dozens of nearby cities and regions with incredible culture, cuisine, history, and hospitality, just waiting to be discovered. When a meeting planner chooses Braga instead of Lisbon, or a corporate group explores Puglia rather than Rome, they’re not settling for less. They’re often getting a more authentic, more memorable experience, while directing economic benefit to communities that need it most.
The same logic applies to seasonality. Encouraging travel during the off-season or shoulder months does wonders for both visitors and residents. Hotels and restaurants that might otherwise struggle through quiet months get the business they need to keep their doors open year-round. Visitors enjoy smaller crowds, better availability, and often better value. And residents in peak-season hotspots get the breathing room they deserve.
This is where destination management companies truly shine. Our role has always been to know destinations at a granular level: to understand which neighborhoods are buzzing and which are waiting to be explored, which weeks offer the best weather and the fewest crowds, and how to design experiences that feel effortless for the visitor while creating real, lasting value for the community. That’s the art of destination management, and it’s never been more relevant.
Why Metrics Matter More Than Ever
Destinations that are getting this right share something in common: they’re investing in data. Real-time visitor tracking, visitor segmentation, and regularly reviewed operational guidelines are giving destination managers and policymakers the ability to anticipate pressure instead of reacting to it, optimize economic impact per visitor rather than simply chasing volume, balance GDP contribution with quality of life, and guide visitors toward the experiences and time slots that work best for everyone.
And here’s a metric that doesn’t get enough attention: resident satisfaction. When local communities feel heard and see tangible benefit from tourism, the visitor experience improves too. Resident acceptance isn’t a soft measure; it’s directly linked to long-term destination competitiveness.
The destinations already embracing this data-driven, community-inclusive approach are seeing encouraging results: visitor numbers are holding steady or growing, experience quality is improving, and resident satisfaction is rising. That’s not a trade-off; it’s proof that smart management works.
Looking Ahead
Europe’s willingness to lead on this is welcome, and I hope it inspires a broader, global conversation. Overtourism is not a regional issue; it’s a worldwide opportunity to get tourism right. What we need is a shared framework that combines standardized metrics, transparent reporting, genuine resident engagement, and practical templates that can be adapted across countries and contexts.
At Global DMC Partners, our network of destination experts in over 150 countries has a front-row seat to what works and what doesn’t. The destinations investing in thoughtful management, leveraging business travel, promoting secondary destinations, encouraging off-season visits, and listening to their communities, are the ones delivering the best outcomes for visitors, residents, and local economies alike.
Tourism is a force for good. It creates jobs, builds bridges between cultures, and fuels the kind of economic stability that underpins peace. The opportunity in front of us isn’t to limit that force; it’s to channel it wisely. The tools, the data, and the expertise exist. Let’s use them.
