During my meeting with Commissioner Antonio Tajani in Strasbourg while attending the European Parliament’s plenary session in mid-April, I had the opportunity to emphasise that tourism must have a higher profile in European policymaking. Tourism should be given more importance on the agenda of the European Union especially for member states in the southern part of Europe and particularly for Mediterranean islands where numerous families depend on tourism for their livelihood.
With Commissioner Tajani, who is vice-president of the European Commission and responsible for industry and entrepreneurship, I reiterated my concerns about the current predicament of the national airline, Air Malta. My emphasis was on the planned capacity reduction of the airline and the strategy of the current management to substantially reduce the work force. This is truly a difficult time for the airline’s employees and their families.
Issues discussed also included the European Commission’s initiative for a European Charter for Sustainable and Responsible Tourism. The Charter’s objective is to encourage sustainable and responsible tourism policies and actions across Europe. As the Commission put it, the Charter intends to provide a common reference point for all stakeholders in an effort to encourage public and private tourism stakeholders to endorse the Charter and commit to respect its principles and implement its lines of action.
In the framework of implementing Action 15 of the 2010 ECC on tourism policy, a stakeholder consultation was open until April 20. I did my best to use this opportunity to open a channel of communication for local stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry to give their views about pertinent issues that have an impact on their profession. After contacting organisations and getting their feedback, my office made a formal submission to the European Commission with a contribution towards enhancing the discussion leading to the adoption of the European Charter for Sustainable and Responsible Tourism.
Why is the Charter important? Firstly, it would encourage initiatives aimed at, inter alia, promoting sustainable management by destinations and responsible best practices by tourism enterprises. It also aims to strengthen the European social model in line with the Lisbon Treaty and the Europe 2020 strategy. The latter is fundamental because it seeks to help make the European Union a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. These three mutually reinforcing priorities should help the member states deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion.
Another key objective of the Charter is to increase awareness in the travel and tourism sector of the importance of following sustainability and responsibility principles. This is why, as an MEP, I took the initiative in sending the current draft of the Charter, together with a questionnaire forming the basis of the consultation, to Maltese and Gozitan organisations and constituted bodies that are representative of their sectors.
Since our priorities as Maltese in this important area may be different from those of the larger EU member states I was determined to push forward the local stakeholders’ views at all the available fora so as to ensure that our priorities are taken into consideration in the final say and where it matters.
In my exchange of views with Commissioner Tajani, we agreed that the Charter would be a useful tool to help promote the development of sustainable and responsible tourism. As the draft Charter itself states, responsible tourism refers to the awareness, decisions and actions of all those involved in the planning, delivery and consumption of tourism, so that it is sustainable over time. To be sustainable, tourism must be economically viable, meet the needs of society and the environment, and in this way, continue to deliver benefits without detriment to current and future generations. I fully agree that the sustainable competitiveness of the tourism sector is fundamental in the short, medium and long term.
The Charter also emphasises the fact that tourism in Europe faces many sustainability challenges such as pressure on resources, the detrimental effect of seasonality in tourism demand, economic uncertainty and the way it is affected by climate change. These challenges can be met with collective responsible action between public and private stakeholders.