Royal Biographer Says Prince William and Kate Middleton Are Going to ‘Insist on Doing It Their Way’ With Royal Tours

TL;DR: 

• A royal biographer thinks Prince William and Kate Middleton will “stamp their personalities” on future royal tours.  
• The couple’s likely to “insist on doing it their way” to modernize royal tours.
• U.K. government office responsible for planning royal tours may “insist” on certain elements. 

The Wales way. A royal biographer thinks Prince William and Kate Middleton are poised to make future royal tours their own. From planning to the Prince and Princess of Wales getting “their way,” a royal biographer explains what could be ahead for William and Kate’s royals tours.

Biographer thinks William and Kate will put their own ‘stamp’ on future royal tours

When William and Kate embark on a royal tour, expect it to have a more personal touch. Royal biographer Robert Jobson thinks the parents of three are going to “stamp their personalities” on any and all royal tours in the future (via Mirror). They’ll probably “insist on doing it their way” to modernize royal tours, he said. 

William and Kate haven’t undertaken a big royal tour with multiple destinations and time away from home, since Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Rather, they’ve traveled around the U.K. on short visits. For instance, they made a day trip to Wales, their namesake, in October 2022. 

How royal tours are done has ‘rarely changed’ in decades, according to biographer

Anyone who has watched The Crown knows royal tours look essentially the same from year to year. While the royal shaking hands and smiling for cameras may change, the itinerary hardly ever does. 

Jobson, author of William at 40, has seen it firsthand. “I have been covering royal tours for more than 30 years. In that time the format has rarely changed,” he said. 

“Even those undertaken by Princess Diana, the woman who is supposed to have changed the monarchy, followed a set pattern of formal dinners, speeches, walkabouts, hospital and school visits, and glad-handing politicians, some had murky pasts,” he said. 

The reason, at least in part, he explained, is because royal tours are carefully and thoughtfully planned by the U.K. government. “Royals themselves” don’t organize “overseas visits, he said. 

“They have some input” but the tours are carried out “largely at the behest of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or in the case of Realms, by the host country themselves.”

The U.K. government may ‘insist’ on certain events or appearances during a royal tour, biographer says

So how can William and Kate have a say in what happens on royal tours? It may not come easy even despite William being first in the line of succession. 

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or whichever arm of the U.K. government spearheading the planning, might push for certain images on royal tours. 

“If they insist, or at least strongly desire, the royal principal riding in a vintage Landrover at a passing out parade once used by the queen in bygone colonial times, as happened to William and Kate, nine times out of 10 it will happen,” Jobson said. 

Meanwhile, William and Kate are headed to Boston, Mass., for the 2022 Earthshot Prize Awards. They’re also expected to embark on a royal tour in 2023. Whether or not it will have their “stamp” remains to be seen.