The “European Tourism Manifesto” alliance, bringing together over 60 Europe's travel and tourism organizations make concrete recommendations to EU Member States for reopening European travel and tourism, including the creation of a working group led by the Commission to restore freedom of movement. Specifically, signatories intend to relaunch travel and tourism in Europe so they can still save the summer of 2021.
At the heart of the recommendations is the development of a guide to restore travel, since the rules of indefinitely are different in the various EU countries, there is a need to implement rules in close cooperation with industry and the social partners.
Assim, a Commission working group dedicated to restoring free movement of people would lead the development and implementation of the standards in addition to providing ongoing risk-based assessments and the latest scientific data.
It should be noted that the various recommendations collected by the “European Tourism Manifesto” alliance have already been presented to EU governments before the two crucial discussions on free movement: a video conference of European leaders in the days 25 e 26 February and extraordinary meeting of Ministers of Tourism to 01 de Março.
Refira-se, a propósito, that APAVT integrates, through ECTAA, this organization and to which it has given its contribution through a working group created for the purpose.
In the statement of the alliance “European Tourism Manifesto”, that begins by highlighting having as main objective the return of Europe to its place of main tourist destination of the world and a safe place, it can also be read that As EU vaccination programs progress and protect the most vulnerable citizens, we must together get ready to restart the trip (…) there is no time to lose in order to restore public confidence until the summer.
Recommendations to EU Member States include, among other points, the creation of a task force to restore freedom of movement for people and implement a plan to restart travel; improved European coordination of travel restrictions and provision of predictability for travelers, as well as for travel and tourism companies, and their workers; testing and vaccination; electronic health certificates coordinated in order to avoid having 27 different certificates covering tests, vaccination and / or immunity; e, coordinated reopening of tourist activities, once the health situation allows it, it is essential to restart tourism and leisure activities together with restoring freedom of movement for EU citizens.
The European Tourism Organization is part of this European Tourism Manifesto (ETC-European Travel Commission), in which Turismo de Portugal is integrated – Luís Araújo is currently the president of ETC -, as well as the airline association for Europe (Airlines for Europe), of which TAP is a part.
