Brussels, 14/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has unveiled a Communication on how best to exploit the European tourism sector's competitive advantage, highlighting the need to enhance co-operation on and the consistency of tourism policies among the stakeholders, viz. the European Commission, Member States, regional and local authorities, industry, associations and tourist destinations. The Commission aims in particular to foster tourism's competitiveness and sustainability. With a view to providing the industry with a political platform and improving co-operation and coordination, it is proposing to organise an annual European Tourism Forum as a key interface with stakeholder groups.
Europe is the most visited tourist destination in the world, with tourism and related activities accounting for more than 20 million jobs and 12% of EU GDP - one of the fastest growing sectors of the European economy. The Communication unviled on Tuesday aims to raise awareness of the importance of tourism within the EU economy as a whole and is the final milestone of the "tourism and employment" process launched four years ago. It is the result of intensive work since January 2000 with Member States, industry and major civil society stakeholders on five key issues: information, training, quality, sustainable development and new technologies. The Commission underlined the importance of exchanging more information and experience among the interested parties to prepare for the implementation of the actions recommended in the Communication, namely: promoting dialogue with the tourism industry and other interested parties by holding an Annual Tourism Forum and extending the remit of the Advisory Committee on Tourism; fostering networking services and support functions, for instance through competence centres (observatories, study and research centres) at national, regional and local level; ensuring good use of the EU's financial and non-financial instruments to the benefit of the tourism industry, in co-operation with national and regional authorities and with operators; promoting sustainable development by further elaborating on and implementing the Agenda 21 guidelines; and defining and disseminating assessment methods and tools(quality indicators and benchmarking) for monitoring the quality of tourist destinations and services (see http: //europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/services/tourism/index_en.htp).
In terms of the impact of the 11 September events, Mr Prodi said that the Commission hoped that the impact of the attacks would not last long - applied correctly, the measures outlined in the Communication would reduce their long-term repercussions. The European Commissioner for Enterprise Policy and the Information Society, Erkki Liikanen, said that it was too early to assess the long-term impact of the 11 September events on the tourist industry but the Commission hoped the fall in visitor numbers to the European continent would not last very long.