Sustainable Tourism Law

SUSTAINABILITY: THE PATH FROM STOCKHOLM TO THE EUROPEAN CHARTER 659 2. To try to integrate tourism in Community policies and guarantee a good coordination of political initiatives that can affect it, assuring simultaneously that the activity is contemplated in the main EU financial instruments 91 . 3. To stimulate tourism access to groups with impaired mobility, that are socially or economically underprivileged, as well as promoting a more prominent use of tourist infrastructures, fomenting bigger usage periods throughout the year and reinforcing the feeling of European citizenship. 4. To have the conscience of the “importance of innovation, research and information and communication technologies for the competitiveness of the EU tourism industry”. 5. Integration of sustainability in sectors linked to tourism – e.g. transports, residue treatment and water treatment, amongst others – and the creation of knowledge networks for the exchange of information, technology and promotion of good practices for the tourism industry. 6. To mitigate the obstacles to opportunities for tourism growth in Europe following the arrival of new issuing markets. 7. To strengthen Europe’s image and visibility in main third countries through joint activities that generate added value relatively to the already existing national promotion actions. In turn, the member-States manifested their willingness to: 1. Participate in the launch of the new framework of tourism’s policy established by the Lisbon treaty, submitting it to the principle of subsidiarity. 2. Promote ethical and responsible tourism and, most of all, the social, environmental, cultural and economic sustainability of the activity. 3. Highlight the importance of knowledge and innovation for the sector, reinforcing the use of new technologies both by the public and private actors of tourism and encourage networking and the exchange of good practices, as tools to improve the competitiveness of European tourism. 4. Support measures and initiatives that allow the expansion of high tourism season , fighting seasonality and fomenting touristic employment in the off-season. 91 Namely Structural Funds, European Rural Development Fund, Framework Programme for Research. Additionally “the Commission might consider consolidating the current budget lines used for the support and coordination of tourism initiatives, under a coherent and comprehensive financial framework for tourism”.