Policy & Insight
Insight
We work with data partners to enable us to share access to their expertise with our members. They regularly provide us with statistics and their interpretation at webinars and conferences open to all members.
ETOA’s Insight Hub presents a rich statistical and insights service for our members, partners and stakeholders. Its aim is to provide up-to-date research, actionable insights and opinion pieces on the topics that matter to our members. Additionally, it serves to articulate the value of tourism to global and local economies, lending weight to our lobbying activities and supporting our vision of Better Tourism in Europe. As well as reports and discussion papers from a wide variety of sources, it showcases recordings of all our webinars and masterclasses.
Our industry surveys support our work on regulatory reform. In September 2022 we launched a survey on visa processing in Asian markets interested in travel to Europe. Next, we will examine the impact on EU to UK business if ID cards were restored as acceptable forms of ID for children on school groups.
ETOA’s working groups and advisory bodies ensure we stay informed on business trends and strategy as well as operational issues. This keeps our activity aligned with member interests and produces concrete illustrations of business impact and sentiment.
Policy
ETOA was founded in 1989 to speak for operators providing multi-country product in Europe, who mostly worked with long-haul business. As EU tax law, consumer protection, Schengen and the single market developed, their impact on tourism needed to be understood. That remains true today.
In Brussels, ETOA is a leading member of the European Tourism Manifesto, the Tourism Resilience Network (an informal contact group for the Commission), NET (Network for the European Private Sector in Tourism), and other groups which pool insight from across the industry and build consensus. In addition to its European network, ETOA’s large global buyer membership is particularly useful, for example in illustrating impact of visa policies or travel restrictions.
ETOA contributed to the development of the Tourism Transition Pathway which, given the pandemic’s impact on the sector, was the first of a series of pathways planned by the Commission. We regularly contribute to the OECD tourism committee’s activity.
While EU policy is important, national, regional and city governance often has more direct impact. In general, the more local the government, the stronger the community influence on policy development. This means that part of ETOA’s role is to develop constructive relationships with destinations and local stakeholders, including business.
