First, it confronted the hard truth – what happens
when a destination becomes so successful that local residents are pushing back and local authorities declare they do not want any more tourists, as in the case of Barcelona, which welcomed around 26 million visitors in 2025, against a resident population of roughly 1.7 million, and the city’s first Commissioner for Sustainable Tourism has declared the city doesn’t want a single additional tourist.What does it mean to promote a destination that says it doesn’t want more visitors, I asked Guerra.
“It looks challenging, but it isn’t quite as it looks. Even in the early 2000s I remember street paintings saying ‘no more tourists’ – the government identified this friction between tourists and residents 25 years ago. Traditionally, our strategy – like most destinations – focused on matching demand to supply. What we realised is there’s a third, critical element: the local resident. Our new strategy puts preserving residents’ quality of life as priority number one and builds the needs of visitors and supply on top of that. It’s a shift from asking what visitors we want to attract, to asking what mindset we want to attract.”
Airbnb, and the ban everyone’s watching
The other hard truth is that Barcelona has announced plans to phase out short-term rental licenses by 2028. Goh reframed the debate.
“Many cities have real concerns about housing affordability, but in Barcelona, short-term rentals have already been restricted for more than 10 years, and they make up only about 1% of the housing stock – while housing costs kept rising anyway. That tells you the housing challenge is very complex, and rentals probably aren’t the root cause. We can’t control where people want to travel.
“My focus is on markets across APAC where governments still want tourism – Japan is targeting 60 million travelers by 2030, Thailand is targeting 40 million by the end of this year and working with them to bring travelers outside the typical tourist areas. In Bangkok, that means asking how we get people across the Chao Phraya River, not just clustered around Sukhumvit or Sathorn.”
Asked about a meeting with the Penang state government she’d missed the morning session for, Goh offered a small, telling anecdote about how those conversations actually go.
Mich Goh, Airbnb: “My focus is on markets across APAC where governments still want tourism – Japan is targeting 60 million travelers by 2030, Thailand is targeting 40 million by the end of this year and working with them to bring travelers outside the typical tourist areas. In Bangkok, that means asking how we get people across the Chao Phraya River, not just clustered around Sukhumvit or Sathorn.”
Selling only the Disneys and Universals
While Klook’s Ang admitted that “it’s so easy to sell your Universals and Disneys”, she said that “if brands and OTAs only focus on selling the same handful of things, it channels demand into very concentrated places, weakens the overall travel experience, and we should be asking ourselves what actually differentiates us if we’re just selling what everyone else sells. And overtourism creates real negative impact on local infrastructure and community.”
A study done by EY, shared at WiT Japan, showed that repeat visitors were more likely to fan out to less visited areas – making the argument that travel brands needed to be more targeted in their marketing and attracting the kind of traveller who actually wants to find the not-so-obvious attractions.
This is the shift that the Catalunya Tourism Board is making – from markets to mindsets, said Guerra.
“We used to define a visitor persona – this age group, this marital status, this profession – and target that. We were missing the resident’s mindset and behaviour in that definition. Now our work is identifying which channels reach the mindsets we want, which suppliers can create products to meet those travelers’ expectations while keeping residents’ quality of life intact, and which partners can distribute and sell those products.
“Communication matters just as much: you want to invite the mindset you want, and subtly signal to the mindset you don’t – maybe this isn’t the place for you.”
Airbnb’s Akiya Project, and Jeju’s grandmothers
Mich Goh described one of Airbnb’s most tangible dispersal projects: turning Japan’s millions of empty rural homes into heritage-respecting guest accommodation.
“There are over nine million empty homes in Japan, largely in rural areas, many in heritage architectural styles. Our Akiya Project, with the local home owners’ association and JTB, funds refurbishment while making sure the heritage style is preserved. We even brought in two well-known influencers to refurbish their own akiyas, which helped raise the profile of preserving heritage and using disused assets.
“We’re starting similar work in Korea, where empty homes are also a challenge, including a project on Jeju, where grandmothers living along the Olle walking trail had a lot of excess space in their homes.”
Raul Guerra, Catalunya Tourism Board: Our new strategy puts preserving residents’ quality of life as priority number one and builds the needs of visitors and supply on top of that. It’s a shift from asking what visitors we want to attract, to asking what mindset we want to attract.”
Klook’s creator brief: Story first, not visuals first
Asked what a creator brief looks like when Klook takes influencers to a destination it’s trying to disperse demand toward – for example, Hiroshima, where it held a recent KreatorVerse, Ang said there is a temptation to over-script but that it was best to resist that.
“Good stories power today’s content, and good stories power today’s algorithm too. Our brief only tells creators the basic information and the highlight of what they’ll experience – we leave the rest open, so that when they visit with us, the raw, unwritten emotion of the experience comes through. That’s the most powerful part. It’s the land, what the place has to offer, more than just the pretty spots.”
Do the numbers actually move and do they stay?
Guerra pointed to the Grand Tour of Catalunya – a circular, sectioned itinerary built during COVID to pull visitors beyond Barcelona – as proof that dispersal and headline attractions can coexist.
“More than 50% of our arrivals are repeat visitors. First-timers want the Sagrada Familia, want to stay in Barcelona – and that’s fine, it’s one section of the Grand Tour. But out of the 26 million arrivals, 15 million or more have already done that, and they’re ready to explore beyond it. It’s working especially well now, with a strong euro pushing Asia-Pacific travellers to look for more affordable ways to experience the region, which often means going beyond Barcelona.”
Goh spoke about Airbnb’s Beyond Big Cities work in Thailand, running for seven years, with a specific focus on Buriram, a town whose tourism, driven by its MotoGP stadium, used to spike and vanish.
Mildred Ang, Klook: Good stories power today’s content, and good stories power today’s algorithm too. Our brief only tells creators the basic information and the highlight of what they’ll experience – we leave the rest open, so that when they visit with us, the raw, unwritten emotion of the experience comes through.”
Citing an Airbnb study, she said, “Across eight impact countries, 89% of guests travelled to a non-urban destination in the past year, and 91% intend to again next year – this isn’t a trend, it’s becoming the foundation of travel. In Buriram, we didn’t just drive demand to the stadium events – we built local capacity to host guests, and put together a guide to the ancient ruins and other things to see, so the province isn’t defined by sports tourism alone. Over seven years, we’ve seen the number of homestays on the platform keep growing.”
In the case of Hiroshima, Ang said, “We saw demand rise 90% after our creator visit, and we’re now in our second year running that campaign. In Taichung, two months ago, we ran a local version with Taiwanese creators, and saw search rise around 30% – impressive, given it was a low season. But the real test is whether it’s sustainable. Looking at the baseline over almost a year now, it has increased overall, so it drove both awareness and conversion, not just a temporary spike.”
What should we actually be measuring?
Given all their concerns about attracting the right traveller, and ensuring the right traveller disperse to the right places, as well as how ready local places are for travellers, the discussion turned to the metrics their organisations are actually held to – arrivals and spend for Guerra, investor-facing metrics for Mich, conversions for Mildred – and asked what a more relevant measure of success would look like instead.
Said Guerra, “If we’re talking about human connection, the key indicator should be the level of satisfaction in the relationship between visitors and residents – something we’re only starting to measure now. We’re evolving from counting arrivals to measuring things like the quality of jobs tourism creates, or seasonality – does travel spread across all four seasons or only concentrate in summer.”
Ang added: “For second-tier cities, I’d look at some kind of growth index – satisfaction that indirectly reflects whether local infrastructure and community are actually ready to receive tourism. And rather than leaning further into the usual hotspots, I’d track new visitorship — people who’ve never experienced a destination should get the chance to. It’s about creating a cycle toward a healthier, more sustainable future, not just optimising the same demand.”
Goh responded: “My team runs a biennial report looking at economic impact – not just direct spend, but how that spend ripples through the local community. But I keep thinking about how we measure connection itself: how many people someone actually meets through a stay or an experience they book. We can measure economic impact through spend, but we’re not really measuring the social, heritage or cultural impact of someone’s time in a local area. I think the three of us – product, platform distribution, destination – should genuinely collaborate on this.”
It seemed there was a reason after that that these three panellists were brought together to close out WiT Indie.
Tags: WiT Indie