Geopolitical Archives

Paris Air Forum 2026: An Edition Defined by Industrial and Geopolitical Shifts

July 5, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

Paris Air Forum réunira le 12 juin à la Maison de la Mutualité plus de 1 000 acteurs de l’aéronautique - Photo : Paris Air Forum

CroisiEurope

À un peu plus d’une semaine de son ouverture, Paris Air Forum s’apprête à réunir, le vendredi 12 juin à la Maison de la Mutualité, l’ensemble des grands acteurs de l’aéronautique, du spatial et de la défense européens.

Plus de 1 000 visiteurs et 120 intervenants sont attendus pour cette nouvelle édition, organisée dans un contexte géopolitique et industriel marqué par l’accélération des transitions technologiques et la recherche de souveraineté stratégique.

Dans un environnement où la souveraineté technologique s’impose comme une priorité, l’édition 2026 du Paris Air Forum mettra en lumière les grandes transformations à l’œuvre dans les filières aéronautiques, spatiales et de défense.

Intelligence artificielle, transition énergétique, autonomie stratégique : autant de thématiques abordés par les industriels, décideurs publics et experts internationaux.

A Strategic Gathering at the Heart of Sector Changes

Parmi les temps forts annoncés figurent notamment :

les enjeux de l’IA dans la préparation des armées de l’air du futur

la souveraineté à l’épreuve du chaos mondial

une rencontre entre Guillaume Faury et Arthur Mensch

la réindustrialisation européenne et son rôle stratégique

la capacité des industries à rester à la pointe à l’ère du numérique

la montée en cadence des fournisseurs face aux besoins croissants

ou encore l’avenir des programmes de défense après 2027

Conferences, business and innovation on the program

Le Paris Air Forum s’articulera autour de quatre salles de conférences, où leaders industriels et experts croiseront leurs analyses pour décrypter les grandes tendances du secteur.

En parallèle, l’événement proposera un dispositif complet dédié aux échanges professionnels : rendez-vous d’affaires via la plateforme Vimeet, permettant de planifier des rencontres qualifiées en amont, networking, avec des espaces dédiés pour favoriser les échanges tout au long de la journée et espace exposants, consacré aux innovations industrielles et aux solutions concrètes des acteurs du secteur.

L’objectif est de faciliter les connexions entre décideurs, industriels et innovateurs afin de renforcer les coopérations dans un contexte de forte transformation des filières.

Au-delà des innovations technologiques, cette édition 2026 interrogera les grandes équations stratégiques du moment : l’avenir de la réglementation aérienne, la compétitivité européenne face aux puissances mondiales, ou encore la place de l’Europe dans la course spatiale.

La question de la capacité du continent à rester une “ligne de champions” dans le spatial sera notamment au cœur des échanges, dans un contexte de concurrence internationale accrue.

Publié par Amelia Brille Rédactrice TourMaG.com
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Tourism in Geopolitical Turbulence: Industry Under Pressure

June 19, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

Tourisme mondial 2026 : une croissance résiliente malgré les turbulences géopolitiques, despositphotos.com

Top of Travel

Global tourism showed resilience in the first quarter of 2026, with 307 million travelers traveling abroad, or 6 million more than the same period in 2025, up 2%, according to the latest UNWTO barometer.

If January and February were marked by solid demand, rising by 2.5%, March saw a clear slowdown, up only 0.4%, directly linked to geopolitical tensions.

Europe and Africa emerge as the engines of this growth.

Europe, the world’s leading destination, hosted more than 130 million visitors, a 4% increase, benefiting in part from a shift in flows toward Southern Europe, the Mediterranean, the North and the East.

Tourism: The Middle East stalls

Africa also climbs by 4%, supported by a striking 18% jump in North Africa in March.

Asia and the Americas, by contrast, show more restrained momentum. The Asia-Pacific region posts an overall 3% growth, restrained by a 27% drop in South Asia due to air-transport disruptions, although Oceania, at +9%, and Northeast Asia, at +5%, register solid performances.

The Americas register a moderate 2% uptick, masking wide disparities between the dynamism of Central America at +18% and the downturn in South America at -1%.

To read: Tourism: after a difficult month of May, operators turn to the government!

Conversely, the Middle East is in a slump. The region is bearing the full force of the conflict, with a 14% drop in arrivals in the first quarter and hotel occupancy collapsing from 75% in January to 48% in March. Only Egypt stands out, with a pronounced 16% rise.

The Middle East conflict is profoundly altering the travel economy well beyond its geographical area.

Shaikha Al Nuwais, Secretary-General of UNWTO, notes that disruptions to air links, coupled with maritime instability in the Strait of Hormuz, are driving up the price of oil and kerosene.

This situation leads to a mechanical rise in airfares and a reduction in transport capacity.

Tourism: Transport costs darken the outlook

The Middle East conflict deeply reshapes the travel economy beyond its regional borders.

Shaikha Al Nuwais, Secretary-General of UNWTO, notes that disruptions to air links, coupled with maritime instability in the Strait of Hormuz, trigger a surge in the price of oil and kerosene.

This situation causes a mechanical increase in airfares and a reduction in transport capacity.

According to IATA, air traffic in the Middle East contracted by 61% in March, although global air traffic overall maintained a 4% growth for the quarter, thanks to the shift of flows toward European, Asian and African airlines.

In the face of these inflationary pressures and prevailing uncertainty, industry professionals display more measured optimism for the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere.

The UNWTO Confidence Index stands at 105 for May to August, down from 117 at the start of the year. Nearly two-thirds of experts believe that the conflict negatively affects demand.

These economic constraints push travelers to adjust their behavior: the search for value for money becomes paramount and demand tends to shift toward nearby destinations.

Despite this climate of uncertainty, which is expected to trim global growth by 1 to 2 percentage points versus initial forecasts, significant opportunities loom, notably for Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which are preparing to host the FIFA World Cup.

Tourism Amid Geopolitical Tensions: Health of Industry Leaders and Employees at Stake

June 18, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

Le Tourisme face aux tensions géopolitiques : Cathy Bou, fondatrice et dirigeante d’AGAPÈ s’exprime sur le sujet © nidimages / Nicolas Demare

Top of Travel

Fresh from the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector is once again put to the test. Gulf monarchies, once hailed as the safest tourist destinations in the world, have in a single day become among the riskiest places.

Caught in a trap, thousands of holidaymakers turn to their travel agencies. Between emergency repatriations, destination changes and refund requests, travel agents and tour-operator teams, the magicians of our holidays, must face immense psychological pressures, and their mental health is undoubtedly affected. A silent deterioration of working conditions for these agents takes hold, exacerbated by the psychological precarity that the sector’s probable collapse could entail, with massive layoffs looming.

The closing of airspaces, navigational difficulties at sea, skyrocketing oil prices and surging insurance premiums have finally redrawn the map of zones accessible to tourists with fewer risks. “Dubai used to account for 70% of my annual turnover. Overnight everything collapsed. Today I spend two-thirds of my time reassuring clients who are blocked or panicked, while the remaining third is spent undoing what I had spent months building. Reprogramming isn’t even on the agenda given the great uncertainties about the end of this conflict in the Middle East. The hardest part for us travel agents is imagining our professional future. It’s truly depressing.” Sabrina, a staff member, portfolio manager for Maghreb and the Middle East at a French tour operator, shares with us.

Industry professionals on the brink of burnout

“We have shifted from dream merchants to firefighters. I used to sell dreams, dream destinations, voyages that changed lives. Now I am on the verge of becoming a psychologist, not knowing what tomorrow holds – how can we continue to sell when we are the ones on the edge of a nervous breakdown?” confides Sandrine, an employee at the same company. In this climate of emotional precarity and operational survival, how can a process aimed at achieving certifications or labels such as Travelife-ISO20121 – 26000-ATR or any other framework be steered?

What challenges lie ahead for the CSR approach, and what levers can the CSR consultant pull?

Challenge 1: Priorities

When a crisis hits in the middle of a certification-support process, the CSR consultant faces the paradox of priorities: urgency versus the standard.

Sabrina has just spent the day coordinating the evacuation of 200 tourists stuck in Abu Dhabi without success. The airport and the region’s airspace are closed. Sandrine has spent the last half hour dealing with the anger of a young married couple whose honeymoon in Dubai has just been cancelled. The two employees are in an extremely tense emotional state. At the same moment, the CSR consultant accompanying their company toward renewing its certification enters the office. The look she exchanges with the two employees convinces her that this is not the right moment to discuss standards*.

* The names have been altered to avoid identifying the individuals concerned

Challenge 2: Embody CSR, not endure it

For Agapè, the CSR consultant’s role in such a context is to show empathy, to listen to the management and to the employees, and not to appear as a zealot defender of the standard, adding an extra workload. The consultant has a moral obligation to immerse themselves in the palpable tensions in order to reshape the certification process agenda, reorganize the schedule, and demonstrate that it is ultimately a pedagogy, a guidance toward practices that preserve human beings first, then the planet.

Challenge 3: Social effectiveness

The social dimension is the central pillar of any corporate social responsibility approach, says Cathy Bou, founder and CEO of AGAPÈ.

Lately, we are encountering many cases of psychological pressure and decline in the quality of life and working conditions (QVCT). Our own situation could deteriorate as we encounter sensitive scenarios. Yet, our reading of the frameworks requires us to prioritize the protagonists, to consider sustainability in its entirety (Social, Economic, Environmental). It is certainly common for environmental concerns to take precedence.

The challenge for the consultant in this anxiety-filled climate for company leaders and their employees is to be a buffer between all parties. To succeed in their mission, the consultant must ensure that the management’s order of priorities is reversed. “They must convince the leadership to place health and safety — for themselves, their employees, collaborators and other providers — at the top of the CSR priority stack.” No certification would be credible if it is built on social distress and the collapse of teams. In such a case, the initiative would be nothing more than a “social-washing”.

When the initiative lacks humanity, when the consultant and the management ignore distress, the CSR standard will inevitably be perceived as cynicism by stakeholders, a new checkbox for the management. “We are asked to be eco-responsible certified, to think about carbon footprints or waste management while there are sickness absences, burnouts, fatal accidents during missions — it’s the height of cynicism.”