Brussels, 27/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - Following the conference held in London last week (City Fair), the European tourism specialists of ETOA (European Tour Operators Association) met Commissioner Antonio Tajani to discuss several topical issues and tell him their expectations in the area, by means of a European tourism policy in step with national initiatives. The thorny issue of visas, a brake on the expansion of tourism from the emerging markets, received particular attention.
Tourism from the countries of Latin America: the ETOA members welcomed the European Commission's recent initiative to promote tourism from Latin America to the European countries. The principle that cultural tourism must be encouraged is exactly the type of initiative to take, stresses ETOA, which is particularly pleased to note that the private sector has been involved in the initiative.
Visas: problems of movement related to visas constitute a major obstacle to the expansion of tourism from the emerging countries. According to ETOA, 21% of people planning holidays in Europe have to cancel their trip for reasons related to a visa problem. This corresponds to around 500,000 tourists who do not end up visiting Europe, representing a loss of revenue in the region of €1 billion. Currently, the procedures for obtaining a visa for Europe are somewhat laborious: very long forms to fill in, considerable costs, registration of digital fingerprints and even interviews.
Taxes: certain cities (such as Rome, Florence and Venice) have brought in extra taxes for booking overnight stays in hotels. ETOA particularly criticises the lack of consistency in these taxes, which have different rules depending on the place visited. ETOA also spoke out against the lack of transparency in prices, with bookings sometimes made a long time in advance and ending up with a higher final price than the initial price, due to these extra taxes.
VAT and tour operators' profit margin: the problem is not the level of VAT within the EU, but the way VAT is applied to tourism products, which favours non-European destinations and operators based outside the European Union.
Commissioner Tajani was very receptive to these points, ETOA stresses. The organisation reiterates that it is prepared to work with the European institutions in favour of a successful tourism policy. (I.L./transl.fl)