Every 27th of September since 1980, the Church joins all nations in celebrating the United Nations World Day of Tourism and gives it a spiritual significance through the pope’s yearly message. Through the Vatican, it has a permanent observer mission to the World Tourism Organization and shares in the inspiring principles of the World Ethical Code of Tourism adopted in 1999 by nations across the world. There are Pastoral Guidelines (e.g. 1969, 1978 and 2001) for its leadership, and to date the Church regularly convenes global symposia specially devoted to tackling the challenges at hand in concert with other global stakeholders.
The world of tourism is a widespread, multiform and complex phenomenon. The Church calls it a “sign of our times”, and its evangelization is integral to the whole range of its pastoral tasks. The goal of this comprehensive engagement, according to the 2001 Guidelines, is not only to spread “the Christian vision of tourism” but also to develop the “implicit possibility of a new humanism in tourism.”
The vision harkens back to the idea of “homo viator”: human beings, driven by inner restlessness, are travellers or nomads on a journey in search of meaning and value (Gabriel Marcel). Hence, the journey of a tourist is far from being merely physical or geographical. It is, in the Christian tradition, integral to one’s “peregrinatio anime”, the wanderings of one’s soul toward a spiritual home (St. Augustine).
The Church’s evangelizing goal evokes the ancient and deeply human praxis of hospitality: the act of receiving a traveller or stranger into one’s abode and meeting their needs. Hospitality in the Old Testament is both a moral obligation to ensure the well-being of travellers and religious evidence of the host’s character and commitment to honour Yahweh. In New Testament accounts hospitality is a Christian lifestyle because, for the early Christians, God in Christ loved them first, they were to love their neighbour (1John 4:10-12).
Interestingly, the Latin word “hospes” means both the one offering shelter (host) and the one receiving it (tourist). Hospitality denotes the deeply human encounter of both, one where their reciprocity holds endless possibilities for a new humanism. Hence hostility, from the Latin word “hostis” meaning enemy, is the antithesis of hospitality and the scourge of reciprocity.
What happens when the traveller is hostile to the host, and when a people’s hospitality is reciprocated instead by the guest’s hostility?
I am alluding to tourists who are members of the Israeli Défense Force (IDF) as they embark on their “tiul gadol” or big trip after completion of 2-3 years of mandatory active military service against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza (and in Lebanon, Syria and Iran as well). The big trip is a program of the Israeli State and funded by their military discharge compensation. It serves as a transition period before the young veterans go back to civilian life, find employment, or pursue university studies. But, for the local communities in the many touristic destinations in Asia, there is more to Tiul Gadol than meets the eye, foreboding a trend of unprecedented disruption to their way of life.
In the surfing island of Siargao (Philippines), for instance, the locals suffer from behavioural patterns of cultural abuse: calling hospitality staff “slaves”, mocking and assaulting transwomen, violating the no-noise curfew past midnight, raising the Israeli flag on boats, discarding rubbish in public and private places, absconding to avoid paying for a meal, wearing scanty clothing even in places requiring a modest dress code, reckless endangerment in driving, and ejection meltdown when asked to leave a restaurant to make room for paying clients. Host destinations in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are also bearing the brunt, and their well-esteemed brand of Asian hospitality is already at its breaking point.
The abusive pattern is fanning the flames of geopolitical tensions. The locals in these countries are mostly Buddhists (Vietnam and Thailand) or Hindus, Muslims and Catholics (Indonesia and Philippines). Prompted by the ethical values of their religions, many of them harbour deep sympathies for a free Palestine and express horror at the level of Israeli violence in Gaza. Instead of respect, Israeli tourists harass shops displaying pro-Palestine slogans, threaten to blacklist them in social media, or provoke an argument with shop-owners if not a fight, even against other foreigners. In these idyllic places respect is essential even when people disagree, but they have now become geopolitical spaces of polarization if not rabid aggression.
It is far worse in India, particularly in touristic places across the north and south frequented by hordes of young Israeli war veterans backpacking along the route they call the “Hummus Trail”. Hummus, an Israeli (or Mediterranean) staple food, rightly signifies the insidious transformation of the affected localities. Local signboards are now in Hebrew, posters promoting the IDF abound, Israeli owned touristic establishments cater to Israelis only, and Israeli enclaves (“Little Israel”) are proliferating. The high consumption of illegal and/or psychedelic drugs along the route and the consequential meltdown are most disturbing. Treatment outposts run by the Israeli Anti-Drug Agency have been set up, while Chabad Houses of the Messianic Jewish Orthodox Movement are multiplying to save the drugged and lost souls of Judaism.
For the Israeli officialdom and media, these are isolated cases of unruly behaviour. But for the locals, invasive tourism is unfolding in their midst. It is disrupting their cultural identity, social cohesion, local economy, and the freedom of their political convictions. Evidence suggests that, from a clinical standpoint, the root of all this is the “worsening mental health emergency inside the IDF”. Suicide is on the rise (11 in 2021, 14 in 2022, 21 in 2024, and 22 in 2025); from January 2024 to July 2025, 279 soldiers attempted suicide; and a 40% increase in PTSD cases since its war in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack. For fear of adverse effects on relationships or of being perceived as weak, seeking professional help remains a taboo. Their Tiul Gadol is the poor substitute.
From an ethical point of view, the IDF soldier who has seen and/or participated in the carnage and violence in Gaza also suffers from moral injury. Barely in their young adulthood they already must “navigate wrenching ethical dilemmas where no option feels right, leaving lasting scars on conscience and well-being.” Aside from psychological collapse, many suffer from identity conflict as they are ordered to do something contrary to their Jewish religious upbringing. Others are politically disillusioned as conscientious objection to the war suffers a blowback, even as self-disclosure and counternarratives to the genocidal conduct of the war are discredited as unpatriotic. The IDF tourists are not only participants in violence but also casualties of war. They suffer from mental health issues and grave moral injury, and they need urgent professional help, not a Tiul Gadol.
In this light, tourism with Israel is no longer routine holidays and normal cultural exchanges. The Tiul Gadol, at least under Netanyahu’s Zionist regime, is both a political and cultural infrastructure whereby the soldier-tourist is the agent of the underpinning ideology, the Israeli enclaves are the purveyor of its logistical needs, and Chabad centres provide the religious canopy. It should therefore be seen as part of a broader normalisation process aimed at expanding the social acceptance of Israel’s war in Gaza counter to the increasing global consensus calling it a genocide.
Tourism with Israel provokes profound transformations even as it poses ethical/moral tensions. While tourism is the source of livelihood and social advancement of the locals, their hospitality cannot be at all costs as justice demands to hold accountable the perpetrators of abuse. While it may be a call of conscience to recognize the humanity of these tourists and the moral injury they suffer, such compassion must resist the transformation of touristic destinations into a haven of war criminals or a playground for the casualties of war to decompress. And while reciprocity is essential to tourism relations between nations, solidarity with the victims of war crime beckons nations to close the gap between their legal obligations under international law and its actual enforcement.
In places most affected by this complexity, the locals could not share yet in the Church’s optimism regarding the possibility of a new humanism. But, as the 1969 Directory for the Pastoral Ministry to Tourism has promised, “the Church is prompted not to stand still in traditional postures but to seek out new pastoral forms.”
May it be, and soon.