ENIT President Alessandra Priante on the missing voice in tourism planning, and why the current global situation makes the conversation more urgent than ever
The problem is familiar to anyone who works in aviation or destination development. An airline wants to fly a low-season route but the hotels are closed. The hotels are closed because nobody is promoting the destination. The destination isn’t promoted because there are no flights. Everyone agrees something should change. Nobody moves first.
Speaking on the Balancing Tourism podcast, ENIT President Alessandra Priante acknowledged the circularity of the problem but argued that the conventional framing misses something fundamental. There is a fourth party that needs to be in the room, she said, and it is the one most often left out: the citizens who live in these destinations.
“No one’s going to tell you they don’t want tourists. But very few people are going to tell you why they really want tourists and what they want tourists to do to make the best out of it.”
Priante, who previously served as Director for Europe at UN Tourism overseeing 43 member states, drew on her experience of watching airlines open routes to destinations that were not ready to receive visitors. The airline opens the route, she said, because someone convinced them it would work. But nobody asked the destination manager whether there were hotels, services or a product to support the traffic. The route fails, and the opportunity is lost.
Her argument is that the infrastructure required to break seasonal patterns is not only physical. Airports, hotels and conference centres matter, but so does the institutional willingness to plan collaboratively. She pointed to Madrid as a city that has built a complete system: airlines connected to MICE, connected to hotels, connected to events, all functioning as a coherent whole. The result is a destination that works year-round, not because of climate or geography, but because of deliberate, joined-up planning.
The conversation took on added urgency when it turned to the current global situation. The Middle East conflict, now in its seventh week, has disrupted aviation routes, sent fuel costs surging, and redirected demand towards European destinations. Priante warned that the effects extend well beyond the Gulf: when people feel uncertain, she said, they do not just avoid the affected region. They stop travelling altogether.
“Our job is to keep people dreaming. We don’t necessarily need to push people to travel. But what we need to continue saying is that it’s safe.”
She was particularly critical of opportunistic fare increases, describing situations where flights that would normally cost €40 were being sold for €400. The short-term revenue gain, she argued, comes at the cost of long-term confidence. A passenger who feels forced to pay ten times the normal fare is unlikely to book again willingly.
For Priante, the seasonality question and the crisis response question are ultimately the same question: how well has a destination designed its tourism system? Destinations that have built diverse, year-round products and connected their airlines, accommodation, events and communities into a functioning whole are better positioned to absorb shocks, whether those shocks come from seasonal patterns, geopolitical events or shifting traveller behaviour.
That argument will be at the centre of her opening keynote at the Tourism Seasonality Summit, taking place on 17–18 May at the Palacongressi in Rimini, co-located with Routes Europe. With aviation leaders, DMOs, hotel groups and policymakers in one room, the Summit is designed to address exactly the circular problem Priante describes, and to include the voices that are too often missing from the conversation.
The Tourism Seasonality Summit takes place on 17–18 May 2026 in Rimini, Italy, co-located with Routes Europe. For the full programme and registration, visit seasonalitysummit.com
