We are a think action tank for a more sustainable future of travel.

The Transparency Company was founded in 2023 to push tourism toward transparency, responsibility, and sustainability. We are a think action tank that identifies challenges, tests solutions, and supports the industry through sparring, communication, and tools, but we’re also a creative studio dedicated to helping people like you create a better travel industry. We welcome bold ideas and "impossible" projects that challenge the boundaries of how travel businesses are built and operated.

Now, we’re launching this project. We're not sure if it’s a blog, a media initiative, a digital magazine, or something else entirely; think of it as a hub waterhole in the jungle or a campfire gathering of curious minds - a place for the curious, the bold, and the rebel. Guided by questions, we aim to break down industry narratives, challenge assumptions, and seek new paths to reimagine tourism. 

Our goal is to make complex and challenging ideas accessible and understandable. We’re building a network of contributors with a wide range of experiences, talents, and perspectives, a collective dedicated to making tourism better.

We won’t limit ourselves to a single channel; the path forward has to find itself. Transparency.travel is here to evolve with the questions, challenges, and ideas that emerge along the way, wherever they may lead.

Where are the critics from within?
The criticism of tourism in general may never have been greater. In many places, people are taking to the streets to protest. People are forced to move from their homes because it’s become too expensive to live there, or they simply can’t take it anymore. This is happening everywhere. There’s no shortage of published content about tourism; in fact, it’s one of the most covered topics, whether in social media, travel magazines, websites, or traditional media. The latter report on tourism but often without depth or nuance, driven by a hunger for sensation and clicks that cuts across industries.

Where are the critical voices from within the industry itself?

Why do we see only sporadic posts where someone dares to speak out? Why aren’t we taking external criticism more seriously, and why aren’t we taking the world more seriously?

Tourism needs more critical voices. Not to attack It, but to protect It. To make sure we can do this also in the future.

In tourism, as in all industries, critical voices play a crucial role as "self-correction mechanisms." Yuval Noah Harari, in Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, reminds us that systems without such voices risk becoming static and autocratic. Tourism, too, benefits from genuine critique through media, blogs, podcasts, and social channels, spaces where travelers and communities aka the people can act as judges.

The recent US election season demonstrated that traditional media is becoming obsolete, replaced by diverse platforms and alternative voices. The travel industry remains fixated on outdated PR structures and consumer media that have lost relevance. It’s a culture that still glorifies “media fam trips” and magazine clippings without realizing that audiences have long since moved to newer media channels.

Too often, travel journalism lacks depth and is, in many ways, reduced to content marketing. Stories about destinations frequently ignore cultural, political, and social contexts, weakening tourism’s credibility.

As Harari observes, truth is a rare and costly form of information. It demands research, investment, and effort. While simple narratives often prevail because they’re more digestible, the truth is often complex, painful, and unattractive, forcing us to confront uncomfortable realities and take a stand.

Our Vision: A New Kind of Platform

Instead of investing in an outdated format, we’re building a platform where we hope in-depth journalism, analysis, and creative expression can thrive. Transparency.travel is about creating a community of critical voices that challenges and expands the tourism narrative.

We believe that the conversation needs to move beyond the tourism bubble to reach decision-makers, ensuring well-grounded policies. Tourism is not an isolated industry but part of a complex world that requires open, transparent dialogues with communities, authorities, and other sectors. We strive to provide a platform for nuanced perspectives, a space to examine tourism and its impacts honestly.

The truth is, the stories we need for a new era demand a language we’re still developing. We believe in perspectives, poetry, diverse arts, and essays as tools to expand our mental models and engage with the complex questions of our time. Transparency.travel offers a space where varied voices can challenge the status quo, keeping tourism connected to reality.

Join Us

Is this for you? If you value substance, clarity, and curiosity over easy answers, you may find a home here. This isn’t only about the tourism industry, it’s about shaping a future that respects both people and places.

We explore journalism, essays, and the arts with a commitment to challenging the uninspired realities of nonfiction, and the predictable narratives of travel media. We welcome tourism workers, stakeholders, researchers, designers, philosophers, bloggers, podcasters, poets, activists, rebels, comic creators, data visualizers, economists, investigative journalists, and anyone with something to say to join us in redefining tourism.

In a world awash with clicks and conclusions, join us as we explore what tourism could become. Transparency.travel will be an editorial platform with a dedicated editor, curating voices, questions, and critical perspectives on the future of tourism.

If you have something on your mind, join the conversation and make your voice heard.