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'Jeffrey Epstein's offending played out across the travel industry, and we did nothing'

Opinion
Alessandra Alonso
30 March 2026

Writing for TTG, Alessandra LoTufo Alonso, founder and managing director of Women in Travel CIC, says Epstein's terrible crimes were allowed to take place, in part, due to the travel and tourism industry failing to recognise or hold to account the activity that was under its nose.

A private jet sitting on a runway at dusk
(Credit: iStock / halbergman)

Did travel fail to speak up about Jeffrey Epstein? (Credit: iStock / halbergman)

There are moments when silence from an industry becomes impossible to ignore.

Amid all the conversations around power, exploitation and abuse linked to the Jeffrey Epstein case, I’ve been struck not just by what is being discussed publicly, but by what isn’t.

For those of us who work in travel and tourism, in particular, we cannot pretend that this conversation sits outside our world.

So much of the lifestyle of Epstein and the elite he surrounded himself with played out – for decades – across the travel industry, in private jets, hotel rooms and hot tubs, at airports and on private islands.