The Open Letter underlines that “tourism often regenerates dilapidated areas and less developed regions, particularly rural ones.” Additionally tourism also contributes “to creating a sense of pride in European citizenship and promotes mutual understanding within the EU” with the numerous benefits European citizens enjoy when travelling in the EU, such as removed roaming charges, EU passenger- and cross-border consumer rights, the European healthcare regime, as well as customs free shopping with a single currency in the Eurozone.
However, the sector faces massive challenges like a growing investment gap, burdensome bureaucracy for SMEs, the need to align the sector with the energy and climate targets as well as digitalisation, a growing crisis of missing skills, security and marketing issues related to terrorism, and fierce competition from new non-European markets. These challenges cannot be dealt with at national level alone. Therefore political action at the European level is needed to secure Europe’s position as the world’s leading tourist destination while continuing creating jobs and sustainable growth.
