13 Mar, 2025
How the booming Arms Bazaar is hurting Travel & Tourism
The pursuit of sustainability is doomed to fail without equal attention being paid to Peace, the 5th and most neglected of the 5Ps (Planet, Prosperity, People and Partnerships) of sustainability. Earlier this month, the linkage gained a higher sense of respectability when the ITB Berlin, the world’s largest travel trade show, opened with a UN Tourism ministerial session on this topic.
Discussions about peace-building are incomplete without discussing the factors that disrupt it. On 12 March, I attended a high-octane webinar to hear speakers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [www.sipri.org] explore the risks and threats posed by the multi-billion dollar arms bazaar.
Some key findings are being shared in the slides below. The shocking bottom-line conclusion was that the obscene amounts of money being spent on weapons are set to grow as global geopolitical tensions rise. That will divert valuable funds from the UN Sustainable Goals, which are already looking an impossibility in the five years before the 2030 target date. The fact that the United States is the biggest financial beneficiary explains a lot.
One important takeaway was the contradictory reasons for the economic existence of both tourism and the weapons industry. Both are major drivers of GDP growth and jobs. But tourism profits from building peace. The arms business profits from the absence of peace.
The arms bazaar also contributes significantly to the deterioration of the natural environment via largely unchecked carbon emissions by all the tanks, fighter jets, naval vessels, missiles, etc., as well as the mining of the rare-earth minerals that go into making them.
Another takeaway was the monumental waste of money. Many Gulf countries are among the biggest buyers of American weaponry. What for? When was the last time they fought a war? How would be their chances even if they did?
Even worse, many of the impoverished “developing countries” buy weaponry just because a neighbouring country is buying them, or in order to suppress internal rebellions. This worsens their fiscal situation. Export earnings from low-priced natural resources simply do not cover the cost of importing overpriced weaponry.
What if these gargantuan amounts of money could be diverted to Travel & Tourism and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to promote health, education, transportation networks, etc. Would that make the world more safe, secure and stable than fomenting strife and discord to bolster shareholder value and return on investment?
Would that benefit Travel & Tourism?
One of the SIPRI analysts noted that the situation is likely to worsen under the Trump regime.
She noted that the US has various legal safeguards designed in theory to prevent US-made weaponry being deployed to aid and abet human rights abuses. The former Biden administration did make some effort to uphold that, but the Trump regime is unlikely to. Another fear is the Trump regime will simply promote arms deals as a part of Trump’s “Let’s Make A Deal” style of management to advance the MAGA agenda — in other words, buy more US arms or get hit by tariffs.
The nexus between geopolitical instability, conflicts, the arms bazaar, tourism and peace has thus far never figured in Travel industry forums, for several reasons. Intellectually, the subject is beyond its pay grade and supposedly beyond its control. Financially, Travel & Tourism is a huge beneficiary of the arms dealers’ mega-million travel and entertainment budgets and their contribution to the MICE sector via participation in and sponsorship of exhibitions, conferences, meetings, training programmes, etc.
Money talks, and no-one wants to disrupt the revenue stream.
However, now that both UN Tourism and the ITB Berlin have elevated the topic to a higher level, a course-correction would be in order.
I am proud to be one of a handful of travel industry journalists continuing my long-standing quest to give this vital topic the traction it deserves.
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