International perception has always been important to governments, no matter whether that is an authoritarian leader or a democratically elected government. Outsiders’ opinions matter. This can influence economic partnerships, diplomatic relations, and whether the country is embraced or rejected as a partner on the world stage. This matters even more for a government engaging in repressive or exploitative behaviour. If the outside world looks at a country and sees political repression, the erosion of civil liberties or the mistreatment of minorities, they often begin to turn away from such government. Sanctions are enforced and diplomatic ties are cut.

That is why international tourism is such a handy tool of political manipulation for governments whose conduct may invite scrutiny. By carefully managing a tourist experience, a government is able to create an alternate reality for international visitors of their choosing. Only messages and images they want the world to see and hear are visible. This facade reshapes how these governments are seen abroad, without having to actually engage in political reform.

The Origins of Tourism as Propaganda

Such a strategy isn’t new.

In the twentieth century, affordable travel became more widely accessible, allowing ordinary people to travel abroad. It didn’t take long for governments to realise the potential that international tourism offered them, with two regimes standing out for the way that they understood how tourism could be used as a political tool. In both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, international tourism was under government control, with the intended aim of counteracting negative perceptions held against each regime. In the Soviet Union, the tourist experience was highly managed: tourists were subject to prior coordination, and were usually part of a guided tour that excluded certain neighbourhoods, in an attempt to minimise the contact between the tourist and the regular Soviet population. In contrast, in Nazi Germany, the tourist experience appeared more hands-off but was still part of a highly calculated political strategy. Areas of natural beauty, such as the Rhine Valley and the Black Forest, were heavily promoted in foreign press, pushing international tourists to areas that had been ‘beautified’ and were ostensibly free of the unpleasantness of the Nazi regime.

While using different strategies, both had similar goals. The aim was for international tourists to visit their respective countries and marvel at how different it was from what they had seen in the media. They would then go home, full of positive stories and a transformed perception of the country, that they would share with family and friends. However, these tourists were not experiencing the reality of life in these countries. Unwittingly, they had become parts of the state’s propaganda machine. They were only shown what the government wanted them to see and nothing more.

This strategy didn’t disappear, it modernised. State managed guided tours and Nazi beautification became UNESCO campaigns, sparkling new World Cup stadiums, and billion-dollar infrastructure projects. Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are just some of the countries playing the same game, repackaged for the twenty-first century.

The Controlled Lens

Egypt positions itself as ‘A Time Traveller’s Paradise’. Its state-controlled tourist agency, the Egyptian Tourism Authority, heavily promotes the country’s historical and natural sites with its official website boasting of the abundance of UNESCO sites and the government’s continued support for conservation and archaeology efforts. Their website makes an effort to highlight the ways in which the country’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, is instrumental in providing ‘unprecedented support’ for Egypt’s heritage projects.

Another government organisation, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, is dedicated to protecting and preserving the heritage and history of Ancient Egypt, and hosts several events a month centred around Egypt’s dynastic history. In 2025, the Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza celebrated its grand opening, with the focal point being the complete treasures of Tutenkhamun, displayed together for the first time. The tourist industry in Egypt points to the past, rather than the present, in crafting an Egyptian identity to display to the world.

In Qatar, the 2022 World Cup provided the perfect opportunity for the government to broadcast to the world how modern, safe and luxurious the country was. Since 2010, when it was announced that Qatar would host the World Cup, it is estimated that this small nation spent between $220 billion and $300 billion on developing its infrastructure. In 2021, Qatar Tourism, a branch of the government, launched the ‘Experience a World Beyond’ campaign, which promoted the country as a safe and accessible gateway to the Middle East, blending cosmopolitanism with Arabic tradition. This campaign utilised three local characters, supposed to represent friendly Qatari tour guides and highlights the extensive development and exceptional hospitality that can be expected by international visitors. Riding on the back of the success of the World Cup – which saw an increase of foreign visitors by 60% in 2023 – more than 560 events have been planned through 2026 and 2027, including Formula 1, the FIBA Basketball World Cup, Art Basel, and the Qatar International Food Festival. Qatar is firmly cementing itself as a staple destination in the Middle East, with the World Cup acting as a springboard.

Saudi Arabia’s tourism strategy combines both history and infrastructure. The development of AlUla, an ancient Arabian city and governorate in the north-west of the country, has been a focus of the government, who hope to welcome 2 million tourists annually to the region by 2030. The region is home to a UNESCO heritage site, and the Royal Commission for AlUla promotes heritage tours, wellness retreats, and endurance racing, combining ancient history with a completely modern tourist experience. There is also heavy investment in the Red Sea tourism megaproject, which aims to have 50 hotels with 8,000 rooms, 1,000 residential properties, and its own international airport. It has also become increasingly easy for international tourists to obtain a visa, with the application process for eVisas often taking less than 30 minutes and approved within minutes. Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as an unmissable crossroads of ancient heritage and modern luxury, that is both accessible and welcoming.

Behind the Curtain

However, underneath these glittering veneers lies a dark truth. All three regimes have been accused of civil rights infringements, political repression, and limited press freedom.

On Freedom House’s Freedom Index, Qatar scores 25/100, Egypt 18/100, and Saudi Arabia just 9/100. In Amnesty’s 2025/2026 report, they found that Saudi Arabia had carried out the highest number of executions in any given year on record, and continues to severely restrict freedom of expression and association. Human rights defenders and government critics often face lengthy prison sentences, and women continue to face discrimination in both law and practice. Egypt’s President Sisi and his government also continue to face serious accusations of political repression and human rights abuses. Amnesty has reported that NGOs face restrictions and its employees often face arbitrary arrest, influencers are detained under vague morality charges, there are reports of people dying in custody due to medical neglect, and death sentences have been imposed after grossly unfair trials. On the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, Egypt ranks at 140/142 on fundamental rights, surpassed only by Iran and Myanmar. Qatar has long been accused of inadequate protection for migrant workers, with Human Rights Watch reporting that every migrant worker involved in the delivery of the 2022 World Cup that a fan or player encountered could possibly be a victim of wage abuse. The World Cup also exposed the preventable deaths of many migrant workers that the Qatari government have neither investigated nor compensated. Women continue to face severe legal and social discrimination, and members of the LGBT+ community are often subject to arbitrary arrests under ambiguous morality charges. Ultimately, these are regimes that engage in repressive and discriminatory practices with little regard for civil and human rights. This discrepancy between the lived reality of each country’s inhabitants and the image they project to the world is no accident: it is the entire point.

Sanitisation on a Smaller Scale

However, it is not just repressive regimes engaging in this kind of political ‘beautification’. Countries that are typically viewed to be democratic and open societies also engage in the construction of idealised representations for the benefit of international visitors. This often includes removing ‘undesirable’ elements of society from public view, or to put it more bluntly, ‘hiding the misery under the rug’. This often peaks around large events that draw in high numbers of international tourists. In 2024, the French government faced criticism for removing thousands of homeless people from the streets of Paris as part of a ‘clean-up’ operation in preparation for the Olympic Games. Similarly, in 2021, Japanese officials issued homeless people with eviction notices, despite them having no fixed address or anywhere to go, and cited an ‘Olympic-related event’ as a reason for the eviction. In the US, homeless people have been forcibly displaced from the streets in both Los Angeles in the lead up to the 2022 Superbowl, and in San Francisco, before the 2023 APEC Conference.

Although this is far from the same level of political manipulation seen in Egypt, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, it does provide a more nuanced example of governments’ curating their image for the international stage. Governments, even in open democracies, have a vested interest in concealing the uncomfortable reality of inequality and poverty. Homelessness does not reflect well on their governance and policy records, so it becomes important to conceal the reality when an influx of international visitors descends on their cities. This is done purely for visual purposes, evidence that this aesthetic sanitisation is not only confined to repressive or authoritarian governments. These governments are not introducing long-term social and economic reforms to improve the living conditions of homeless people. They are simply removing them from view while their cities are transformed into a stage set that showcases the version of the country they want the world to see.

An Effective Disguise

Does it work? Unfortunately, yes.

Saudi Arabia saw a 6% increase of tourism in 2025 compared to 2024, while Qatar recorded a 3.7% increase. Egypt recorded a staggering 21% increase in foreign visitors compared to 2024. Clearly their tourism industries aren’t suffering, despite the fact that their governments’ human rights records remain some of the worst in the world.

That is why tourism is such an effective tool of image sanitisation for repressive regimes. They are able to construct a reality that is often not available to its citizens and present this to the world as the truth. Tourists are shown the side of a country that the government wants them to see: the sparkling stadiums, the breathtaking monuments, and the modern and luxurious hotel developments. What they don’t see is the human rights activists sitting in prison waiting for a trial based on vague charges. They don’t see the women trapped in their homes with no social or legal rights. They don’t see the scores of migrant workers being exploited in order to build the stadiums and hotels they enjoy. They don’t see thousands of homeless people being forcibly removed for the benefit of a watching world. This is an entirely intentional strategy by these governments, to build a parallel version of the country that is manufactured so convincingly that, for millions of international visitors, it becomes almost imperceptible from reality.

Tourism is effective as a political tool because it appears entirely apolitical. A tourist doesn’t realise that by visiting a World Cup stadium or hiking through the desert at AlUla that they are unwittingly participating in the rehabilitation of the reputations of these regimes. International tourists are often unaware of what has been removed or imposed for their benefit. To them, they are merely enjoying the experiences and luxuries these countries have to offer. These tourists go home marvelling at the hospitality they encountered, the modern facilities they used, without realising that the infrastructure they rely on are built upon the exploitation and repression of those living in the country. If there are no homeless people on the streets they don’t question why, they note how clean and orderly the streets were. They remark on how safe they felt without realising that that is a result of overreaching police powers. They tell their friends and family about their positive experiences and their friends and family decide they too want to visit.

The statistics don’t lie. Tourism is only increasing in all three countries, demonstrating that the facades that have been constructed for the benefit of an international audience are proving to be highly effective in sanitising the image of these regimes. The cycle continues: more tourists, more revenue, more legitimacy, and more of a reason to keep the truth hidden behind the curtain.