Supporting European tourism
Tourism comprises a wide variety of products and destinations and involves many different stakeholders, both public and private, with areas of competence very decentralised, often at regional and local levels. Tourism has a great potential as regards contributing to the achievement of several major EU objectives, such as sustainable development, economic growth, employment as well as economic and social cohesion.
Tourism is particularly important when it comes to offering job opportunities to young people, who represent twice as much of the labour force in tourism as in the rest of the economy.
Employment growth in the tourism sector has been significantly higher than in the rest of the economy in recent years, making the sector a significant contributor to the Lisbon objective to create more and better jobs.
Tourism is a strategic economic activity in the European Union, whose importance in the EU economy is likely to continue to increase in the coming years.
The EU tourism industry generates more than 4% of the EU GDP, with about 2 million enterprises employing around 4% of the total labour force (approximately 8 million jobs). When related sectors are taken into account, the estimated contribution of tourism to GDP creation is much higher - tourism indirectly generates about 11% of the European Union's GDP and provides about 12% of the labour force.
-
Calypso (social tourism)
-
Cooperation in tourism
-
EDEN - Destinations of Excellence
-
Sustainability and competitiveness
-
Promoting EU tourism
-
Sustainable Tourism - Iron Curtain Trail
- Sustainable Tourism - Iron Curtain Trail - Second workshop Sopron (Hungary), 9 December 2009
- Series of economic studies on the knowledge economy to be published (Deadline: TBA)
- FP7 Security Call 3 - FP7-SEC-2010-1 (Deadline: 26/11/2009)
- Study on the Competitiveness of the EU tourism industry 13 November 2009
- European destinations of excellence 2008 - Video 18 August 2008
