Business Daily

Victoria Craig whisks us off to the Greek island of Tinos to find out about a Greek government strategy to prevent over-tourism.

On this virtual vacation, you'll meet an artisan cheesemaker, some travellers, and a restaurant owner to find out whether the government strategy to promote travel to less well known destinations is working, or even welcomed. There are concerns the strategy could erode traditional ways of life on the Greek islands and in the Greek villages tourists don't often reach.

Presenter: Victoria Craig

New forms of electric transport are revolutionising the way we travel for both work and leisure.

Soaring gas prices around the world are encouraging people to look for alternatives such as electric bikes, kick scooters and mopeds.

Tara Holmes visits a new bike shop in the Peak District in England, and speaks to husband and wife team, Richard and Madeline Bowker, owners of Criterium Cycles, and gets the chance to try out one of their best-selling e-bikes. The global market for e-bikes today is worth $35billion.

From there, Tara travels to Nottingham to try out an electric kick scooter for the first time on a public road. She also speaks to Kfir Ben Shooshan, founder of Inokim, an e-scooter company based in Tel Aviv in Israel.

We also hear from people who believe the shift to electrification is happening too fast with safety concerns being ignored. Nikhil Inamdar reports from Delhi in India where two people from the same family died following a scooter battery explosion.

Professor David Greenwood, an electrification expert at Warwick University in the UK, offers some tips on how to avoid buying unsafe vehicles.

And, Augustin Friedel, an independent analyst and mobility expert from Germany reveals which countries are most encouraging new forms of electric transport and how this is being done safely.

Presenter/producer: Tara Holmes

Travel isn't easy anymore. Between the cancelled flights, lost baggage and just the cost of it all, it's almost enough to turn people off altogether. But we'll hear how travel companies are using subscription services to keep those travellers travelling.

Leanna Byrne speaks to airline bosses Neil Thwaites, regional vice-president for California at Alaska Airlines and Kirby Gordon from FlySafair about how their subscription services are boosting business.

We also hear from Iñaki Uriz, the chief executive of Caravelo, a subscription platform for the airline industry on travel trends.

And finally, as some the biggest users of subscriptions services are millennials and gen Z, we speak to someone who calls themselves a "digital nomad".

Presenter / producer: Leanna Byrne.

Pernilla Nyrensten made history when she became the first female founding CEO to float a company on the Stockholm stock exchange since the its inception 160 years ago. She started her retail business, RevolutionRace in 2013 just less than $30,000 today the firm was recently valued at around 1 billion dollars.

Pernilla's journey has not been without challenges - she's been told, by men, that women should only run hobby businesses and that running a public company is too hard and stressful for women.

Pernilla tells Sam Fenwick that the sexist comments motivated her to pursue her dream of running a successful retail business, and how she hopes to be a role model for other aspiring female entrepreneurs.

Presenter / producer: Sam Fenwick

What’s it like to live in permanent daylight for part of the year? Elizabeth Hotson travels around Swedish Lapland to see how one of the most modern economies in the world takes advantage of the twenty four hour summer sun. Elizabeth finds out how a hotel made of ice is kept frozen with solar power, and why the midnight sun is vital to the ancient tradition of reindeer herding in northern Sweden. We also hear how Sweden’s mountain and nature tourism industry developed and why modern businesses like bars and restaurants can capitalise on the never-ending daylight. Plus, we hear from visitors experiencing the midnight sun for the first time.

Producer: Elizabeth Hotson

Picture Credit: the midnight sun in Sweden via Getty Images

A new breed of tech firms is aiming to revolutionise consumer rights online – making us invisible to advertisers unless they pay us for our data.

Presenter Ed Butler visits London-based start up Gener8 and speaks to founder Sam Jones. Sam explains how digital marketing works – and what individuals can do to prevent information being collected – or make money from it.

We also hear from Brendan Eich, co-founder and CEO of US firm Brave, it’s promoting a similar “earn while you browse” model. And it has 25 million active monthly users.

And, Ed asks, if everyone increases their privacy, what will that do to the modern digital economy?

Presenter/producer: Ed Butler

Image: Women in Tokyo looking at phone. Credit: Getty

Approximately 6% of the Earth’s land surface is covered in National Parks – but what does it take to look after these rare and special landscapes?

We go beyond the tourist trails to hear about the challenges and opportunities facing the people managing the parks.

Presenter Laura Heighton-Ginns meets the president of Gorongosa in Mozambique, a park that’s powering the local economy. Gorongosa has become the region’s largest employer and operates a number of side businesses to help with its funding.

Laura also visits Dartmoor in the South West of England, which has seen government financial support cut by nearly half over the last 10 years.

And she finds out about the oldest protected area in the world – and why its future is uncertain.

Presenter/producer Laura Heighton-Ginns.

Image: Gorongosa National Park. Credit: Gabriela Curtiz / Gorongosa National Park

Russian aggression in Ukraine and the world's quest to end the dependence on Russian oil and gas has created an opportunity for Venezuela to negotiate an easing of the US-imposed oil sanctions. But, as Ivana Davidovic discovers, there are also many pitfalls on that journey.

Venezuela may have the world's largest oil reserves, but years of underinvestment have severely impacted output, as professor Terry Karl explains.

Former chairwoman of the refiner Citgo, Luisa Palacios, outlines where Venezuela still manages to sell its oil and the role played by Iran in that trade. She also thinks that a sanctions deal could be made if the Maduro administration is willing to relinquish some control over production.

But Venezuela expert David Smilde is worried that political, rather than practical, considerations - in the US and Venezuela - might muddy the waters.

Caracas-based journalist Francis Pena goes on a lengthy journey to buy petrol in her home city, illustrating how economic mismanagement and sanctions are affecting day-to-day lives.

Presenter/producer: Ivana Davidovic

Tim Hayward takes a journey into the world of fungi. There’s a global wave of interest in the potential uses of fungi right now - and businesses are catching on and playing their part.

Tim starts at the Fungarium in Kew Gardens, the world’s biggest collection of dried fungal specimens, guided by collections curator Lee Davies. He then heads to a forest in Finland, where chief executive Eric Puro and lab manager Joette Crosier walk him through the setup at Kääpä Biotech - one of a new breed of fungally-focussed companies with big ambitions rooted in a passion for mushrooms and mycelium. Then he talks with Albert Garcia-Romeu, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Albert is part of a research team looking at the fungally-derived compound psilocybin - about which there’s a huge amount of interest relating to its therapeutic potential.

Presenter: Tim Hayward

Tim’s three-part series about fungi, ‘Fungi: The New Frontier’, is available now on BBC Sounds.

China, the so-called engine of global growth, seems to be stalling badly right now. The country is facing rising unemployment, falling factory output and a collapsing property market. Plus, a growing number of regular Chinese citizens are complaining that the country's tough anti-Covid strategy isn't working.

Presenter/producer: Ed Butler