European Tourism Manifesto Launches #Tourism4Recovery Campaign

The European Tourism Manifesto alliance, a group of more than 60 public and private travel and tourism organisations, on Monday launched the new #Tourism4Recovery campaign to raise awareness of the devastating impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis on European tourism and showcase the impact of investments in sustainable tourism.

The new campaign aims to support the alliance’s recent call on European governments to include tourism as a strategic part of their national recovery and resilience plans. Published last month, the ‘Call for Action: Accelerate Social and Economic Recovery by Investing in Sustainable Tourism Development’ paper, emphasises that there is an unprecedented opportunity to reset travel in Europe and build a more sustainable, resilient and innovative tourism sector.

To assist EU governments in drafting their national recovery plans, the paper presents a non-exhaustive list of reforms and investment ideas to drive digital and green transitions of travel & tourism and wider EU economies.

“With appropriate support, travel and tourism can be one of the most effective engines to deliver sustainable development in 2021 and beyond,” said Eduardo Santander, Chairman of the European Tourism Manifesto alliance and CEO of the European Travel Commission.

The #Tourism4Recovery campaign

The alliance’s new #Tourism4Recovery campaign, which aims to support the alliance’s call to action and showcase impact of investments in sustainable tourism, features a dedicated website page with user-generated content as well as a series of social media videos presenting tourism as a force for sustainable development.

The alliance urges its travel & tourism partners to join the conversation online and promote key investments required for sustainable tourism recovery in their countries and across Europe.

“We urge EU governments to follow our call and firmly anchor tourism & travel in their crisis response and recovery plans,” Santander said.

Examples of some of the investment proposals included in the European Tourism Manifesto’s paper relate to:

– the greening of tourism destination infrastructure;
– the development of clean fuels for transportation and investment in multimodal transport solutions;
– investments in tourism marketing and promotion to kick-start recovery;
– a fast rollout of rapid broadband services to rural, coastal and mountainous areas and the acceleration of fibre and 5G networks for travellers;
– and support to digital skills training for tourism workers.

The European Tourism Manifesto is the voice of the European travel and tourism sector and its members include ACI EUROPE, CLIA EUROPE, ECTAA, ETC, Europa Nostra, HOTREC, FEG and the WTTC.

The aim of the alliance is to request action from the European Union on key policy priorities for the tourism sector.