The statistics on the importance of tourism to the economic well-being of many European countries are impressive. Tourism is indeed one of the more successful aspects of globalisation.
The industry accounts for seven per cent of global exports and 330 million jobs. In the EU, tourism represents about 10 per cent of GDP and employs directly six million people.
Europe remains the world’s top tourist destination. Every European government is making impressive efforts to see their tourism industry take off once again after more than a year of massive setbacks. Tourism will be back, but probably not in the same form many expect.
There are, of course, still many uncertainties about the medical developments of the pandemic. The roll-out of the vaccines have brought the crisis stage to an end. But if new variants emerge in the coming months and years, more work will be needed on the medical side to put people’s minds at rest on the safety of travelling.
The European tourism industry was facing some significant challenges well before the onset of COVID. Some tourism strategists, but certainly not all, raised questions about the tourist practices that have taken over, especially in the Mediterranean regions for the past three decades. Uncontrolled and speculative urbanisation of the coasts, devastation of the environment, overtourism in certain popular destinations in the Mediterranean like Venice, Barcelona, Dubrovnik, and some northern European cities like Amsterdam are valid reasons for concern.
Beyond the short-term measures aimed to resurrect the industry, in the coming months policymakers need to take the longer-term view when planning the future of European tourism
Mass tourism undoubtedly has its benefits. It employs big numbers of mainly low-skilled employees, has a knock-on effect on other sectors of the economy and generates much- needed foreign exchange income. But we rarely hear about the negative aspects of mass tourism and even more rarely about the industry’s determination to manage the less attractive consequences of tourism.
The growth of tourism in the last half-century is impressive. In 1970, fewer than 200 million people went on holiday abroad. Today, 1.5 billion travel abroad for their holidays. China’s emergence as a significant global economic power has put money in its people’s pockets as they discovered the beauty of overseas travel.
Competition in the airlines’ industry has made low-cost travel a reality for many. The digitalisation of tourism services has mostly cut out the middleman from the equation and enabled travellers to plan their overseas holidays from their homes’ comfort.
But new challenges face the industry. Today, tourism strategists often use the term ‘intelligent tourism’. Like many buzzwords, this risks becoming just a puff of hot air unless it is underpinned with concrete action to make the industry sustainable. This may mean shaking policymakers, as well as operators, out of their comfort zone.
The EU is rightly basing its future economic strategy on the growth of the green economy. This is not just about building wind farms and recycling waste.
It is about taxes and more astute planning to tackle overcrowding. It is about introducing aircraft with lower carbon emission. It is about protecting fragile natural environments from speculation and over-urbanisation. It is about eradicating tourist ghettos. It is about achieving a fairer and more equitable distribution of tourism revenues to the benefit of host populations.
Beyond the short-term measures aimed to resurrect the industry, in the coming months policymakers need to take the longer-term view when planning the future of European tourism. MEPs are pushing for a new European strategy to make tourism cleaner, safer and more sustainable and get it back on its feet.
Bernard Valero, director general of the Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities, argues that the post-COVID period offers an opportunity for Mediterranean tourism destinations to correct the industry’s trajectory. This must be done by underpinning tourism strategy with values such as responsibility and solidarity, enriched with innovation and based on trust in the new generations.
Valero rightly comments that it no longer makes sense to transport snow by helicopter to snow-covered ski slopes in the Pyrenees, to multiply the number of golf courses in Andalucía that lacks water, to let small island tourist destinations be gridlocked with excessive traffic, or let the fumes of cruise ships suffocate locals living next to harbour areas. We all can add to this list of unsustainable practices that make local communities’ lives that much more difficult.
Ultimately, what is at stake is policymakers’ and operators’ ability to forge a consensus on how European communities can preserve and share with visitors their history, their geography and the exceptional wealth and diversity of their cultures.