Brussels, 04/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - The geographical diversity of the European Union, along with its wealth of history and cultural heritage, offer extraordinary potential for growth in the tourist industry, but the industry has to focus on sustainability and quality in order to respect social and environmental criteria. This will not be an easy balance to strike, and the tourism industry is complaining of incoherence in Europe with regard to this oft neglected area of the economy, suffering from growing competition from emerging economies. Tourism has been included in the new European Constitution, which notes that Member States' measures to support tourism should be supplemented by EU measures. The EU is therefore responsible for taking initiatives to coordinate national tourism policies, but without actually going as far as harmonising rules and legislation in the Member States. This was the conclusion reached by a public hearing on 1 February organised by the European Parliament's Transport and Tourism Committee, chaired by President of the Committee, Paolo Costa (ALDE, Italy), on: 'What policies are needed for sustainable tourism in Europe?'. Representatives of the European institutions, the tourism industry and experts voiced their concerns and made suggestions for giving the tourism industry the recognition it deserves.
Every year some 400 million tourists visit the European Union, where they spend some EUR 3 bn. Five out of every 100 people working in the EU are employed in the tourist industry, which forms 5% of Europe's GDP, noted the Luxembourg minister for tourism, Fernand Boden, representing the Council. In the framework of the EU's activities in this sector, the minister mentioned the European Commission's Communication of November 2003 ('Basic Guidelines for Sustainable European Tourism') which forms the backdrop to measures to be adopted in the EU. He said he would be submitting draft conclusions to the Competitiveness Council on 18 April on encouraging cooperation between Member States in this connection. Boden said a seminar would be held in Luxembourg on 21 and 22 April on 'Tourism and Culture: the challenge of European integration'. The Director of DG Enterprise at the European Commission, Pedro Ortun, highlighted the problems in analysing the highly complex tourist industry, with its plethora of small and medium-sized enterprises (making up 995 of operators). Ortun also stressed the changes in tourist behaviour, with people travelling more frequently and becoming more demanding. New groups of people are becoming tourists, since women, young people and retired people go on holiday more often. Ortun said that in his view, the best way to ensure more competitive sustainable tourism was to establish cooperation between all stakeholders, both public and private.
From the tourism industry, Jean-Claude Baumgarten (World Travel and Tourism Council) urged EU institutions and Member States to exploit the enormous potential opened up with the addition of ten new Member States. He said that if correctly carried out, concerted action for tourism in the new Member States could generate EUR 46 mil and 3 million new jobs in the next decade. Baumgarten criticised the lack of single, harmonised assessment tool for the tourist industry at EU level. Bill Richards (Réseau de l'industrie européenne du tourisme) criticised the heavy taxes imposed on the industry and the lack of any crisis management system in the event of national disasters, terrorism or health catastrophes. Arthur Oberascher (Commission européenne du tourisme) called for greater protection and more consideration to be paid to businesses operating in this sector, and the removal of legislative and economic obstacles to the industry. Kertsin Howald, representing the Comité de liaison des syndicats européens du tourisme, pointed out that working and living conditions in the industry could be appalling, such as in the low cost airlines. She said job security had to be improved, along with pay and working conditions, and attempts to dismantle the European social model had to be stamped out. Industry experts François Burhin and Mara Manente highlighted the complex and heterogeneous nature of the tourism industry, characterised by a multitude of different players, interests and objectives. They said the market alone could not manage tourism and had to be supplemented by aid from European, national and regional authorities.
MEP Dieter Lebrecht Koch (EPP-ED, Germany) wanted to see more action at EU level, as did Marta Vincenzi (PES, Italy), who called for tangible measures to take more account of the transversal nature of tourism. Both MEPs mentioned the potential fall-out of the Bolkestein Directive on services in the single market, fearing social dumping in the tourist industry. The President of the Council, Fernand Boden, replied that the inclusion of tourism in the Constitution led him to hope it would be possible to draw up a common strategy for developing the quality and sustainability of tourism. On the draft services directive, Boden said it would not be adopted for a while yet, since many issues still had to be sorted out. Ashley Mote (UKIP, non-aligned) slammed the heavy tax burden and slow bureaucratic machinery that afflicted tour operators so badly, saying that while much legislation should be abolished, people were calling for yet more legislation! British Labour MEP Robert Evans said the tourism industry suffered from too few rules and called for a tighter evaluation of the negative impacts of tourism on the environment and cultural heritage. This issue was also raised by Italian Green Josef Kusstatscher, who said lessons had to be learned from the mistakes of the past, and German Green Michael Cramer, who highlighted the bad working conditions and environmental damage in Spain and Italy caused by over-exploitation of the tourist industry. An Environment Charter urging tourists to respect the places they visit was suggested by Portuguese Socialist Emanuel Fernandes. Boden acknowledged that these countries' need to cope with huge numbers of tourists in the summer could have a negative impact on the environment, and suggested urging companies to suggest that staff stagger their holidays to ensure tourists did not all set off on holiday at the same time. He admitted, however, that it was not easy to get the Member States to take action.