Sustainable Tourism Law

EVOLUTION OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION TOURISM POLICY 129 b) In order to support training in the tourism sector, the Commission will endeavour to promote the opportunities offered by various EU programmes, such as Leonardo or the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) with its “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs” and “E-skills for innovation strands” (action 5). c) To encourage an extension of the tourism season, the following actions are foreseen: 6) Provide a voluntary tourism exchange mechanism between member states, enabling in particular certain key groups such as young or elderly people, people with reduced mobility and low-income families to travel, particularly during the off-season and 7) Develop a voluntary online information exchange mechanism to improve the coordination of school holidays in the member states, without prejudice to their cultural traditions. Another great objective is to promote the development of sustainable, responsible and high-quality tourism . At EU level, the Commission has introduced a number of tools to facilitate environmental management for businesses, such as the EU Eco-label or the Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS). However, the response from tourism businesses across Europe to concerns about sustainability has been very varied. The Commission has also provided member states with documents facilitating the implementation of European environmental legislation, in terms of both individual projects and strategic planning. Actions 11 to 17 are planned to achieve this goal: 11) Develop, on the basis of the Network of European Regions for a sustainable and competitive European tourism (NECSTouR or EDEN), a system of indicators for the sustainable management of destinations. Based on this system, the Commission will develop a label for promoting tourist destinations. 12) Organise awareness-raising campaigns aimed at European tourists concerning the choice of destinations andmeans of transport, relationships with the local population at the destinations and combating the exploitation of women and children. 13) Develop a European “Qualité Tourisme” brand, based on existing national experiences, to increase consumer security and confidence in tourism products and reward rigorous efforts by tourism professionals whose goals are the quality of tourism services to achieve customer satisfaction.