Brussels, 30/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - In an own-initiative report adopted on Thursday 29 October, the MEPs appealed to the European Commission to put tourism back at the centre of its political priorities by including it in all of its activities and allocating more meaningful human resources to this sector within its services.
The Commission, indeed, has not updated its 2010 action plan since May 2013, which they feel will make it difficult to exercise any democratic control over the impact of European policies on tourism. In addition, the MEPs expressed concern at the change in the organigram which came about with the new Commission, drastically cutting its staff numbers responsible for the sector, despite having set ambitious priorities, which were presented at the European tourism forum by Commissioner Bienkowska, who is responsible for the single market and industry (see EUROPE 11391).
Additionally, the MEPs questioned the point of creating the brand “Destination Europe”, a project which has come in for criticism by several tourism organisations, which feel that it would harm the diversity of European tourist destinations. “The label (…) will be accompanied by an explanatory guide to avoid competition between all of the different destinations”, the reporter explained after the adoption of the report, adding on the same occasion that Europe is the world's number one tourist destination, and that tourism is Europe's third-largest economic sector.
Another particularly hot topic at the moment, the collaborative economy, is considered by the MEPs to be a sector which may have positive fall-out for the development of the sector, but also that it may help to reinforce exchanges between the people of Europe, although they feel that it is necessary to increase the regulation of this, in order to limit all forms of unfair competition.
“NET (which represents the private tourism sector: Ed) welcomes the adoption of this report, as it demonstrates a high interest in tourism and recognises the importance of this sector as an important growth and employment creator”, Christina Russe, deputy secretary general of ECTAA, which represents travel agencies and operators at European level, told EUROPE. In particular, she stressed the importance of better regulating the collaborative economy in order to guarantee fair competition as far as possible and, on this point, has high expectations of the strategy for the single market, which the Commission presented on Wednesday 28 October (see EUROPE 11419). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)