SPEECH/06/186
Günter Verheugen
Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Enterprise and Industry Tourism – Key to Growth and Employment in Europe
European Tourism Ministers’ Conference Vienna, 21 March 2006
I would like to thank the Austrian and Finnish Presidencies for organising this Conference and inviting us all here. Vienna is an ideal place to discuss the relation between ICT, Culture and tourism since it is a modern capital with rich cultural tradition and also an important tourist destination.
Events such as this Conference are not just good occasions for the tourism stakeholders to meet and exchange views while establishing closer partnerships on issues such as ICT, Culture, Tourism and growth and employment creation. Their added value is that they provide important visibility to tourism. I want to express my appreciation for the work of successive Presidencies which, the last years, have sponsored several events which contributed greatly to raising the visibility of tourism and highlighting the importance of this industry for Europe and its regions.
The Annual European Tourism Forum is also a very good occasion to exchange views and promote the visibility of tourism. We are grateful for the willingness of Cyprus to host this year’s Forum, together with the Finnish Presidency.
Together with its related activities, tourism is one of the biggest and fast expanding European economic sectors. It can play a major role in our efforts to achieve the renewed Lisbon strategy goals; to create growth and jobs and improve the welfare of European citizens.
Tourism is an activity involving a wide variety of stakeholders and policy measures at various levels. Co-operation and dialogue amongst all those involved with tourism is an absolute necessity. This Conference provides us with a great opportunity to foster partnerships amongst several sectors and to focus our dialogue on issues of importance for the future of European tourism.
As you know, last October I announced at the European Tourism Forum that the Commission is putting in place a renewed European tourism policy based exactly on partnership amongst all concerned stakeholders. The Commission has now formally adopted this policy.
The main aim of this policy is to improve the competitiveness of the European Tourism industry and create more and better jobs through the sustainable growth of tourism in Europe and globally. These are objectives commonly shared by all stakeholders.
Allow me to highlight some of the priority areas of this policy since after all its implementation depends on our common involvement and efforts.
A first area in which we must all work in partnership is Better Regulation. We have launched an ambitious initiative to cut red tape, simplify rules and improve impact assessments. Recently we set up a new group of national regulatory experts who will advise the Commission on its general strategy to simplify and improve European legislation and to facilitate the development of better regulation measures at both national and EU level.
While we will not propose any new regulation unless it is absolutely necessary, we will be looking to review legislation, such as the Consumer protection acquis or various transport related Regulations of particular interest to tourism.
We intend to consult regularly with stakeholders on how the simplification programme should be further developed over the coming years. We hope that all tourism stakeholders will participate actively in this effort to improve the regulatory environment.
I am grateful to all the stakeholders who sent us their views on our new policy and I expect them to be available for dialogue and contact and inform regularly the Commission of their respective proposals.
At the same time we are working towards integrating tourism in all related Community policies and making sure that there is adequate co-ordination of the various policy initiatives that may impact on tourism.
Each year, the initiatives that may affect tourism, included in the Commission Work Programme, will be identified in order to make sure that their impact on the sector’s competitiveness will be taken into account at an early stage. I will ensure, together with my colleagues, that tourism is given adequate attention when preparing new legislative or non-legislative initiatives.
Another important aim of the renewed policy is to make sure that tourism is supported by as many as possible European financial instruments. As you know we are currently at the difficult process of allocating the resources for the period 2007 to 2013, agreed in London, to the various Community actions and programmes.
I am confident that tourism will profit from the support of the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, European Social Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, the European Fisheries Fund, and from programmes such as the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, the “Leonardo da Vinci” or the proposed Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.
Member states, regions, local authorities and the industry at all levels should collaborate in order to ensure that tourism profits fully from the European financial instruments and that it is taken into account in the planning of all related projects.
All this work is of course aimed at actively supporting the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the European tourism.
Making growth and jobs the immediate target goes hand in hand with promoting social or environmental objectives. We must not forget that the renewed Lisbon Strategy is an essential component of the overarching objective of sustainable development set out in the Treaty: improving welfare and living conditions in a sustainable way for present and future generations.
The European Parliament asked us to launch an initiative awarding the efforts of tourism destinations towards sustainability. We are currently working on a proposal for a ‘European Destinations of Excellence’ Award in collaboration with the Member States.
I want to praise the work carried out in partnership amongst all involved stakeholders for the preparation of the European Agenda 21 for tourism. The members of the Tourism Sustainability Group are providing us with valuable input in our efforts to promote the sustainable development of European tourist destinations.
Promoting the visibility of European tourism is yet another important goal of our renewed policy. This must be achieved through common public and private sector efforts and must cover both commercial and political visibility.
To contribute to the commercial marketing of Europe as a set of attractive tourist destinations the Commission financed the creation of the European Tourist Destinations Portal. This unique access point to European tourism information will be officially launched today, here in Vienna. It will give access to the web sites of all European National Tourism Organisations and should improve greatly the visibility of the European tourism products through the effective use of ICT.
As I already pointed out events such as this Conference or the European Tourism Forum contribute to the political visibility of tourism. We count on the collaboration of all stakeholders in order to continue and enhance this endeavour.
We will also try to back those efforts up through hard socio-economic data by supporting the efforts to develop Tourism Satellite Accounts.
The themes chosen for this Conference are excellent examples of the need for and the potential of partnerships created around tourism. They are also areas in which the renewed tourism policy can be successfully implemented.
Cultural tourism is an activity expected to undergo a significant growth. The addition of new attractive destinations through the enlargement of the European Union and the increase of the number of elder tourists should give a further boost to this form of tourism.
Yet if culture and tourism want to develop successfully and harmoniously the respective involved stakeholders must work in partnership. And, since a cultural tourist can be easily encouraged to visit neighbouring attractions, actors at regional or even national level should build up partnerships.
Cultural tourism can generate growth to be reinvested in culture itself and can create jobs, provided that there is sufficient entrepreneurial activity. Here is where the Commission and the renewed tourism policy come into play. Our role is to promote entrepreneurship by cutting red tape, supporting SME development and disseminating good practice.
In this framework we will also analyse the impact of cultural and sporting events on tourism oriented SMEs. European cities and regions are hosting numerous cultural and sporting events which can play an important role in marketing their image, before, during, and even after, the event itself. Quite often, the success of such events depends greatly on the involvement of, and effective partnership with, local actors and the local population.
The Mozart Year or the various festivals hosted by Austrian cities are very clear examples of this. The recently held Winter Olympic Games of Torino are another good example.
Tourism related SMEs, in particular, can benefit greatly from such events, if they are adequately involved in all phases of their organisation.
In a year’s time we will organize a European Conference to present the results of this research to future events hosts. We count on the involvement of all of you in this project.
ICT is also of increasing importance to tourism. It affects business models and becomes a major element of B2B and B2C relations. Its use varies between tourism-related sectors and between parts of the business process.
It is an area where often big enterprises are much more advanced than SMEs; a situation which can hold back the development of potential synergies and the competitiveness even of whole destinations.
New technologies and Innovation contribute to the competitiveness of the industry and of the destinations, which in turn, contributes to the creation of growth and jobs.
I want to assure you that we will continue to monitor the use of ICT in the various tourism branches through the official statistics of Eurostat and also through the yearly e-Business W@tch surveys.
One of the aims of the renewed tourism policy is to ensure that the research on and the use of ICT in tourism will be supported by the European financial instruments such as the Structural Funds and the Research Framework Programme.
I am waiting with interest to hear the conclusions of the workshops, especially on how ICT and Culture are inter-related and can contribute to job and growth creation.
I am sure that the results of this Conference will help us to enrich our ideas and actions and will foster closer ties amongst public and private stakeholders.
Finally I want to congratulate our hosts for organising such a successful event. The Austrian Presidency showed its strong interest in tourism by hosting also the ‘Environmentally Friendly Travelling in Europe’ Conference. I would encourage future Presidencies to do likewise and I can assure them that the Commission will fully support them.
Thank you for your attention
