EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Tourism

Tourism is one of the European Union's most important service industries, accounting for 5% of Europe's GDP and 6% of employment. That was on of the reasons to include the sector in supplementary and supporting activities in the new Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in December 2009.  

According to a new Eurobarometer survey “The attitudes of Europeans towards tourism 2010” published recently, about 80 per cent of Europeans continue to travel for their holidays. The tourism sector shows great potentials for economic stability in citizens wellbeing: only 20 per cent of over 30,000 randomly selected citizens were certain they would not travel in 2010, which is significantly below the proportion of non-travelers in 2009 (33%).

EU citizens increasingly prefer to spend their holidays in traditional tourist destinations (57%), while 28% would rather go “off the beaten track” to new and emerging destinations.

Commission’s opinion

 “The 2010 survey’s results are encouraging for the tourism industry. We need to work further on developing the tourism industry, which ranks third in terms of GDP and employment in Europe. The Lisbon Treaty now gives us the opportunity to tackle this sector from a European perspective. Nearly 50 % of EU residents have already decided that they will go on holiday in 2010 and their perceptions about being able to finance their holidays have also slightly improved”.

Antonio Tajani, Commission Vice-President responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship

Legislative background

The Treaty’s provisions specify (art. 195, TFEU) that “the Union shall complement the actions of the member states in the tourism sector, in particular by promoting the competitiveness of Union undertakings in that sector”.

However, the Union actions, the Treaty says, are limited to two main “complementary functions”:

• Encouraging the creation of favourable environment for the companies working in the sector, and
• Promoting cooperation between member states, particularly by the exchange of good practice.

These features of the Union’s complementary activity shall be kept in mind by the Baltic States’ companies in applying for grants and financial support.

The most important survey’s findings

1. Continuing trend towards discovering Europe and own country: as in previous years, in 2010 about half of Europeans intend to spend their holidays in their own country or in another EU country.

2. More confidence is shown by the citizens to be able to finance their holidays: about half of EU citizens who are planning to take a holiday in 2010 felt they will have sufficient funds (46%) – this is 5 percentage points higher than in 2009. However, as in 2009, 10% said they have serious financial problems that could influence their holiday plans.

3. Traveling remains popular among Europeans: about two-thirds (65%) of EU citizens traveled for leisure in 2009, and traveling is most popular amongst residents of Finland (83%), The Netherlands (79%) and Ireland (78%); the corresponding figure in “rich” Norway is 84%.

4. “Local attractiveness” is cited as the major tourism factor by 32% of Europeans, when choosing holiday destinations, followed by “cultural heritage” (25%) and “entertainment possibilities” (16%).

5. Seeking “rest and recreation” is the main motivation for EU citizens to travel (37%), followed by “sun and beach” (19%) and “visiting friends and relatives” (17%).

6. Arranging holidays themselves is regarded vital and important by about 60 per cent of the EU citizens, which is a slight increase as to 2009 (58%). The following destinations are taken as favorite: EU candidate countries Croatia (83%) and Turkey (82%) leading in assessment.

7. The most popular destinations is Spain –10.4 %; it was already the most popular destination in 2008 and 2009 and dominates also the current plans made for 2010. France (9.9%) and Italy (9.2%) closely follow it. However, 17 % of EU residents planning to go on holiday in 2010 have not yet decided on the destination.

Representative survey

Over 30,000 randomly selected citizens aged 15 and over were interviewed for the Eurobarometer survey in February 2010 in the EU-27, as well as in Norway, Iceland, Croatia, Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

It is for the third time in row that the Commission has done such an extensive survey, which offers to all tourism stakeholders a reliable pack of information, presented analytically in both the country and demographic categories.

The Commission intends to conduct this kind of survey once a year in order to closely follow short and medium term travel and tourism trends in Europe. These surveys will allow tourism stakeholders of the countries surveyed to react to changing trends in tourism demand, and so will constitute an important instrument for tourism policy.

More on the Eurobarometer survey on EU tourism: 

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/tourism/index_en.htm