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Jens Zimmer Christensen
President of HOTREC
Christian de Barrin
CEO of HOTREC
FOREWORD: UNITING EUROPE
TOURISM BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER!
Tourism unites Europe. This is a people industry,
which brings people together. Hospitality is at the
heart of European tourism development. The industry
employs 80% of the total EU tourism workforce,
providing alone 11,9 million jobs thanks to its
2 million businesses, generating over 1,9 billion
nights spent in 200,000 hotels, and millions of meals
everyday in about 1 million restaurants and similar
establishments.
The past 5 years paved the way to a stronger
hospitality industry, engaged into innovation and
transformation. Indeed, the sector alone created
1,6 million new jobs between 2013 and 2016.
One of HOTREC’ s key objective was the regulation
of the ‘collaborative’ economy to level the playing
field while ensuring consumer protection. Good
steps were taken in the right direction thanks to the
excellent cooperation between the EU Institutions
and EU stakeholders. The industry also succeeded
in raising policy makers’ appreciation on the need
to shape a Regulation on transparency and fairness
in platform to business relations still to be adopted
before the end of the current EU mandate. Another
HOTREC key priority was to keep VAT rates low for
hotels, restaurants and tourism services within
the reform of the VAT scheme, therefore further
increasing the competitiveness of Europe; proposal
still to be endorsed by the Council of the EU.
The industry also kept delivering its commitment to
sustainability on a voluntary basis, with actions to
reduce food waste and increase energy efficiency.
It will further take roots during the next EU mandate
through the further promotion of healthy and better
nutrition in the sector.
But even more needs to be done! While global
tourism grew at a pace of 7% in 2017 (8% in Europe),
new opportunities and challenges are rising such
as the need to develop sustainable tourism, and to
further innovate and adapt services to new customer
demands. This will require major quality investments
that shall be addressed through a multi-stakeholder
approach, partly funded by the EU (e.g. multiannual
financial framework), including research on big data
to better manage tourism flows, artificial intelligence
and blockchains.
Better regulation and a new thinking on subsidiarity
shall prevail and top the EU’s agenda for the next 5
years. The digital economy will also remain one of
HOTREC’s key priorities for a more balanced online
market as promoted in this White Paper. Last but not
least, the industry will focus on training the workforce
and respond to the shortage of skills to keep being
the 3
rd
largest socio-economic activity in Europe.
Together with HOTREC Executive Committee and
43 Member Associations active in 31 European
countries, we would like to thank the Members of
the EU Institutions, and in particular of the European
Parliament for the excellent cooperation developed
over the past 5 years and we are looking forward to
working closely with the newly elected and re-elected
Members of the European Parliament and renewed
European Commission.
5
2019 EU elections
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White Paper for Hospitality in Europe