Sustainable Travel Conference: "Financing the Future: Who Pays for Sustainable Tourism?"

A fireside chat I (Ketti) was invited to take part in at a sustainable tourism conference: “Financing the Future: Who Pays for Sustainable Tourism?”

📍 Filmed November, 2025, at the Center for Responsible Travel’s 2025 World Tourism Forum in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The session pairs perspectives from impact investing and consumer-facing sustainable travel to examine how capital, travelers, and tourism businesses can collectively support more sustainable and equitable tourism models.

Speakers:
• Ketti Wilhelm, Founder, ‪‪@tiltedmap‬ sustainable travel blog and Youtube channel
• Sarah Payne, Senior Director of Impact & Operations, UnTours Foundation

The discussion explores:

How travelers, through their purchasing choices and expectations, ultimately “finance” sustainable tourism
What travelers look for when assessing sustainability and the importance of basic visible practices
How businesses can demonstrate authenticity, transparency, and continuous improvement, and the risks of performative sustainability and greenwashing
How the Reset Tourism Fund invests in travel and tourism enterprises, including criteria related to community benefit, ownership, agency, and long-term impact
Challenges in scaling locally owned or community-led initiatives, and the need for greater access to capital, technical support, and visibility
The role of storytelling, influencers, and marketing in directing travelers toward lower-impact, place-based, and community-led experiences
Structural issues - including tourism’s relationship with aviation - that shape perceptions of “sustainable travel,” and the importance of integrating sustainability into the experience (rather than as a separate or moralized choice)
Opportunities for collaboration among investors, DMOs, tourism boards, nonprofits, and travel creators to build more inclusive and accessible funding ecosystems

The conversation highlights both the financial mechanisms and cultural narratives needed to shift tourism toward more responsible, community-centered models.

-------------------------------

👉 KEEP IN TOUCH:

Subscribe to this channel: ‪‪@tiltedmap‬ for more travel and sustainability content

Get our FREE emails with realistic sustainable travel tips & plastic-free product reviews: https://www.tiltedmap.com/email-signu...

ABOUT US:

Hi, we're Ketti and Emanuele! We're from the US and Italy. We’re new to Youtube, but Ketti has been blogging for years about sustainable travel, community tourism, e-bike trips, and sustainable products. Check out https://www.tiltedmap.com/ for lots more!

If you want to see more USEFUL REVIEWS of sustainable products, hit subscribe to tell us so! Thanks for being here! 😃

#sustainabletravel #sustainablesolutions #ethicaltourism #travelindustry