While terror and conflict have made cities like Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, Kabul and Baghdad no-go zones for holidaymakers, tourists still retain a crucial role in fostering peace and preventing bloodshed.
This is one of the key messages of the Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard published online today to mark 2017 as the United Nations International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.
The interactive dashboard, created by tourism researchers at Griffith University and the University of Surrey, monitors and analyses data on the aspects of tourism that most influence and affect sustainable development around the world.
EXPLORE: Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard
The seven areas are poverty alleviation, equality of travel, carbon emissions, resource efficiency, gender equity, protected areas and security.
“The dashboard is telling us that there are conflict zones and we should not go there,” Professor Susanne Becken, (pictured), Director of the Griffith Institute for Tourism, said. “But it is also telling us it is safe to