Brussels, 01/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Participants at the TOURISMlink review conference in Brussels on Tuesday 24 June discussed the challenges facing the European tourist industry and underlined the importance of providing responses to these challenges. The conference also sought to analyse the platform's future with regard to its agenda and management. “Why do I like TOURISMlink?” asked Massimo Baldinato, cabinet member of European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, “because it's about innovation, it's about digitalisation and it targets tourism small and medium enterprises, the backbone of our tourism industry”. Set up two years ago, TOURISMlink is a pilot project supported and funded by the European Commission that seeks to improve the competitiveness of the European tourism sector by making effective use of ICT. It is a federation of online booking platforms that enable SMEs active in the sector to communicate and exchange information effectively with each other. Keynote speakers at the conference, who included representatives from Amadeus, Microsoft, Toolisse, TripAdvisor and Deutsche Bahn, spoke of tackling fragmentation in the European tourism market as the major challenge. They agreed that TOURISMlink is a valuable tool to help respond to this challenge because it creates standards specifically for the online tourism sector. “Interoperability lowers the cost of digitalisation, increases competitiveness, and opens new markets”, pointed out Professor Rodolfo Baggio, a specialist in tourism economics at the Universita Bocconi, Milan. Michel de Blust, Secretary General of the European Travel Agents' and Tour Operators Association (ECTAA), said that “industry stakeholders and destinations both agreed on the importance of a common messaging language to overcome the fragmentation of the market”. With regard to TOURISMlink's future, whose pilot phase is now coming to an end, people are now looking towards renewed European Commission support, together with that of private partners. (IL)