This document summarizes European initiatives and tools to promote tourism. It discusses the EU's legal basis to support tourism, noting that Europe is the top tourist destination thanks to its heritage, assets, and services. The main objective is making EU tourism more competitive by diversifying products and increasing intra-EU tourism. Tools discussed include the European Tourism Indicator System to facilitate sustainable tourism management, trans-national thematic tourism projects to promote cultural and industrial heritage, and the Calypso plus initiative to encourage senior tourism across seasons.

1. European tourism policy:
initiatives and tools
Naples, 10th
July '13
Cinzia De Marzo
European Commission, DG Enterprise & Industry
Tourism Policy Unit

2. Legal base
The EU can: intervene to "support, coordinate or complement
the action of Member States"
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Articles 6 and 195 – Lisbon Treaty -
Its action shall in particular: encourage the creation of a
favourable environment for the development" of a
competitive tourism sector

3. Europe N°1 tourist destination in the world
Thanks to great
•cultural and historical
heritage
•natural assets
•diversity of sceneries
•quality services
•good connectivity
•…
In the Framework (COM(2010) 352) 3
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4. 4
Main objective: Making EU tourism more
competitive
Diversify EU tourism offer
•by better exploiting our cultural /
industrial heritage/cultural routes
•prioritising sustainable
development, professional skills
and service quality;
•Increasing intra-EU tourism flows
by the diversification of tourism
products and low-season tourism
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5. European Tourism Indicator System-ETIS
for sustainable destinations
• Launched in a public conference on 22 February 2013, together
with a Toolkit (guidelines), available on the Commission's
website:
• It aims at facilitating the efforts of those tourism stakeholders
who are committed to ensure a sustainable management of their
destination, by providing them with an easy to use toolkit:
• it will allow stakeholders to measure and monitor their
sustainability management processes, and should enable them to
share and benchmark their progress and performance.
• The system has been conceived in such a way as to be usable by
all kind of destination.
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6. The ETIS is…
…for ALL types of European tourism destinations, such as:
•Local authority-run Tourist Boards;
•Destinations such as national parks employing their own destination
manager;
•'physical space in which a visitor spends at least one overnight. It
includes tourism products such as support services and attractions, and
tourism resources within one day’s return travel time. It has physical and
administrative boundaries defining its management, and images and
perceptions defining its market competitiveness. Local
•destinations incorporate various stakeholders often including a host
community, and can nest and network to form larger destinations and
may be cities, towns, resorts or rural areas, or groupings of these'.
•Destinations who have no formal management, or a combination of the
arrangements above.

7. WHAT ARE THE MAIN BENEFITS FOR THE
DESTINATIONS?
• To assist destinations develop tourism in more sustainable
manner and raise the profile of the destination
• To generate economic benefits which may include improved
destination reputation, greater visitor satisfaction and an
increase in daily spend per visitor;
• To encourage the privat sector to fund (or partially fund)
local co-ordination of the System long term;
• To develop and run training programmes for destination
managers on how to use the system;
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8. ETIS – Next steps
• 3 pilot phases of 9 months each – assessment of
feedbacks and results for a possible review of the system
(by 2015, early 2016)
• 2 calls for expression of interest – deadline 1st
and 5th
July '13
• For interested destinations on testing the system
• For professional expertise > informal pool of experts
The ultimate goal:
• A European wide and improved comparable
system/benchmarking
• Potential use for the Virtual Tourism Observatory

9. State of play
• Very successfull the result of first call!
• 100 destinations across Europe have applyed for the first
pilot phase and they are strong motivated to start testing
ETIS since the 15th July '13
• II Pilot phase from 1st December '13- 30 September '4
• III Pilot phase from 1st February '15- 31 October '15
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10. Trans-national sustainable thematic tourism
products
• The 3rd May '13 was published the call for proposals on
Supporting the enhancement and promotion of sustainable
transnational thematic tourism products: http://
ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=6615
and deadline was the 3rd
July '13.
• 48 projects formally applied
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11. 11
PUBLISHED!!!
Deadline on 31st July 2013 at 17:00.

12. "The present call aims at supporting trans-national cooperation and public-private partnerships, in the
field of cultural and industrial tourism, with a view to support "transnational cultural or industrial
heritage related tourism products". Therefore the focus of this call is on "product development"
and/or "promotional” phases."
•Expected results
•Creation of a "critical mass" of destinations, attractions, sites and tourism-related services […] which
will contribute to the diversification of European tourism offer;
•Contribution to the growth of employment in the tourism sector in regions facing economic decline or
reconversion;
•Better valorisation of the European cultural and industrial heritage;
•Fostering a greater sense of European identity […];
•Eligibility
•5 partners; 5 countries; at least 2 partners among National/Regional Authorities or their
associations/networks or bodies acting on their behalf …
•Other conditions
•Start date: January 2014 Duration: max 18 months
•Cofinancing: 75% Maximum financing per project: 200.000 euro
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13. Calypso plus:
"Tourism for Seniors"
• Call for Proposals "Senior Initiative", aiming at facilitating
transnational low season tourism exchanges in Europe,
encouraging senior citizens to travel
 Publication: 27 June '13- deadline 26th September '13
 Budget Line: EIP Programme
 Budget: 1 million €
 EU Co-financing: 70% up to 340.000€ for each project
 Implementation period: 18 months from January 2014
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14. Calypso plus:
"Tourism for Seniors"
• ObjectivesObjectives
1. Foster the demand and supply of transnational tourism for seniors;
2. Improve tourism seasonality patterns across Europe, by contributing to
the extension of the tourism season, promoting regional development
and increasing European citizenship;
3. Create innovative tourism packages for seniors, which will be available
and sustainable after the EU co-financed period;
4. Set up and strengthen sustainable public-private European
partnerships, including SMEs, to contribute creating a European
tourism domestic market for seniors in the long term.
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15. Who can apply and how?
EU 28 Member States.
European Free Trade Association countries (EFTA) which are members of the
European Economic
Area (EEA) in accordance with the conditions laid down in the EEA Agreement:
Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein.
Other countries participating in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Programme of the CIP: Croatia,
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro,
Albania and Israel.
Applicants should act in consortium with partner organisations which must be
composed by a minimum of 4 and maximum of 8 partners, including the
coordinator , covering at least 4 different European countries
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16. Contact details
Unit E1. Tourism policy
ENTR-TOURISM-POLICY@ec.europa.eu
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Thank you for
your attention!