Call for a European Year on Tourism

8.4.2015

Question for written answer E-005533-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Claudia Tapardel (S&D) , Francisco José Millán Mon (PPE) , Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero Fernández (S&D) , Luis de Grandes Pascual (PPE) , Cristian Dan Preda (PPE) , Alfred Sant (S&D) , Eric Andrieu (S&D) , Miltiadis Kyrkos (S&D) , Enrico Gasbarra (S&D) , Aldo Patriciello (PPE) , Renaud Muselier (PPE) , Rosa Estaràs Ferragut (PPE) , Eva Kaili (S&D) , Theodoros Zagorakis (PPE) , Isabella De Monte (S&D) , Nicola Caputo (S&D) , Emil Radev (PPE) , Franc Bogovič (PPE) , Brando Benifei (S&D) , Salvatore Domenico Pogliese (PPE) , István Ujhelyi (S&D) , Sofia Ribeiro (PPE) , Igor Šoltes (Verts/ALE) , Lucy Anderson (S&D) , Marek Plura (PPE) , Georgi Pirinski (S&D) , Antonio Tajani (PPE) , Theresa Griffin (S&D) , Isabella Adinolfi (EFDD) , Seán Kelly (PPE) , Momchil Nekov (S&D) , Esteban González Pons (PPE) , Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar (PPE) , Fernando Maura Barandiarán (ALDE) , Alberto Cirio (PPE)

The Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, whose portfolio includes tourism policy, delivered a speech at the ‘Spain Global Tourism Forum’ on 27 January 2015.

In that speech, the Commissioner outlined eight common actions aimed at advancing and stimulating the European tourism industry. One of the common actions related to branding Europe as a top destination for tourists from all over the world.

Along these lines, we believe that a way of achieving this goal is to establish a European Year on Tourism. Such an initiative would promote the diversity of European tourism and help raise the profile of the various players active in the tourism sector.

Given that the last Year on Tourism was in 1990, would the Commission consider designating another European Year on Tourism in its current mandate?