Geopolitical resilience as an under-specified dimension: lessons from the 2026 Iran conflict for sustainable tourism governance

Geopolitical risk is under-specified within sustainable tourism governance. Existing frameworks – including GSTC Criterion A11 and UN Tourism SAFE-D – address generic crisis preparedness but lack dedicated indicators for cross-border geopolitical contagion. The 2023–2026 Middle East crisis, culminating in US–Israeli strikes on Iran, illustrates how destinations uninvolved in hostilities absorb disruption. This letter proposes the Geopolitical Resilience Dimension (GRD) – the institutionalised capacity to anticipate, absorb, and adapt to exogenous geopolitical shocks – as a cross-cutting governance domain, advancing four illustrative components for integration within existing certification frameworks.