Tourism and Europe in International Organisations (I)

 

If you are in tourism, one of the key reasons why we constantly come back to ‘Destination Europe’ cannot be ignored. In a time of crisis, the economy’s success, or rather rebound, is the watchword of all watchwords. The Communication of the European Commission, on all other instances of codecision made by the European Union in June 2010, is very clear: the Union countries as a whole remain the world’s No1 tourist destination.

The 2010 statistics need to be revised upwards, but I shall use them since this is quoted from the Communication: “…with 370 million international tourist arrivals in 2008, or 40 % of arrivals around the world, 7.6 million of them from the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), a significant increase over the 4.2 million in 2004. These arrivals generated revenues of around EUR 266 billion, 75 billion of which was from tourists coming from outside the Union.”

A July day outside Notre-Dame in Paris

 

It would, of course, be rather limiting to examine only the tourist policies implemented between the 27 Member States and some of their neighbours, despite the fact that the objective is first and foremost the competitiveness of the 27: “Improving the competitiveness of tourism in the EU plays a crucial role in achieving the goals of the EU strategy for growth and jobs. As such, the tourism sector absolutely must overcome a number of challenges, among which are ageing population, growing competition from around the world, sustainable development and changes in demand for certain forms of tourism”.

All the components that make up the EU highlight the fight against the crisis in the economy: this is at times a safeguard, stressing the chance of changing the development model, but it is most often a magic watchword. However, other organisations in Europe and around the world have an impact on European tourism, and their concerns are both bigger and at times more fundamental; i.e. their mission is to examine changes and to try to predict future scenarios. In some instances they have a direct impact, for they are tasked with thinking, monitoring, or even overseeing practices in connection with tourism; in others their impact is indirect, for they are behind labels which lead to increased tourist visibility for destinations or events; in yet others (on the other hand, I was going to say), their mission is to avoid excessive tourist numbers at one site or to gauge the impact and negative consequences of such, with a view to avoiding abuses.

These initial posts aim only to outline where these organisations differ and where they complement one another.

 

Tourism on a global scale

 

Based in Madrid, United Nations agency the World Tourism Organisation is the leading international organisation in its field. It acts as a global forum for tourism policy issues and a place to exchange tourism know-how. Its membership includes 161 countries and regions, and more than 409 Affiliated Members representing the private sector, tourism associations and local tourism authorities. Preceded by International Union of Official Travel Organisations (IUOTO), which was established in 1947, the first WTO General Assembly met in May 1975 in Madrid at the invitation of the Spanish Government. Robert Lonati was voted in as the first WTO Secretary-General and the Assembly decided to establish its headquarters in Madrid. Having become a United Nations specialised body in the 2000s, the UNWTO naturally focused more on some of the fundamental values of the World Organisation for Peace, but actually such values were always at the fore, even when the organisation could only cooperate with regional commissions. As a result, in 1967 it adopted the idea of an International Tourist Year (ITY) with the slogan ‘Tourism, Passport to Peace’. The type of development targeted is clearly seen at the centre of its missions: “UNTWO encourages the implementation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, to maximise tourism’s socio-economic contribution while minimising its possible negative impacts, and is committed to promoting tourism as an instrument in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), geared towards reducing poverty and fostering sustainable development worldwide.”

 

A Sunday morning in Madrid at the antiques market

Although they proffer this noble declaration of intent, they do not forget the growing importance of this sector of the economy; yet nor do they forget that this is a genuinely global industry, whose principal business areas partake in some of the worst excesses of globalisation: 

“Today, the business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, ‎food products or automobiles. Tourism has become one of the major players in ‎international commerce, and represents at the same time one of the main income ‎sources for many developing countries. This growth goes hand in hand with an ‎increasing diversification and competition among destinations.‎” 

This of course goes hand-in-hand with the proliferation of commercial flights, and the pollution they cause, as well as with a concentration of capital among the issuing countries and low-cost transport companies, to the detriment of the receiving country. Not to mention the destruction caused by mass gatherings at the same sites.

Indeed, the statistics speak for themselves: from 1950 to 2011, international tourist arrivals from increased at a pace of 6.2% per year, going from 25 million to 980 million. The number is expected break the billion mark this year, since UNTWO expects an increase in international tourist arrivals of between 3% and 4% in 2012.

Coach regulations in Paris

 

To compensate for the excesses of and, I was going to say, to raise contributions from the wealthier emitting and receiving countries, this organisation is aimed particularly at helping emerging or developing countries to structure and protect their offer, but UNWTO also focuses on those countries where tourism has declined for cyclical reasons, such as Japan today. From a media standpoint, UNWTO is behind the World Tourism Day, which this year will address sustainability, and recognises its European counterpart, the European Tourism Day, for which this year’s theme was seasonality, maritime and coastal tourism.

It is always interesting to consult the UNWTO’s list of priority activities, each of which has its own dedicated website: “Consulting Unit on Tourism and Biodiversity”, “Hotel Energy Solutions”, “Protect Children” (task force), “Tourism and Poverty Reduction” and “Tourcom”, which aims to streamline communication; something that, upon reading the website, does not seem the easiest task.

Hotel Energy Solutions

The Silk Route, which featured in the priority list at the end of last year, is now a project which must find its own ways to develop in the future, by combining all the impetus and contributions of those involved. This is no mean feat, since the project is billed simply as the ‘most important route in humanity’s history’. We will have the opportunity to look at this project in more detail in terms of Europe and the very historyof the project during UNESCO’s cultural decade (Bulgaria, Croatia and the countries of the South Caucasus have joined the project). A meeting is taking place in September 2012 in Azerbaijan, a Council of Europe member state, with the aim of showcasing the flavours on the route and try to give it a leg-up in amongst the world’s gastronomic routes.

Cattle market, Kashgar. Silk Road… and Olive Route, 2007

As for Europe itself, UNWTO has fairly recently released a document which goes a little further than a repeated presentation of the organisation’s programmes in general. It highlights some of the common goals of the purported 44 countries of Europe. The sub-regions of the Black Sea, the Carpathians, and the South Caucasus-Caspian get a certain priority in terms of thinking and action compared to Western Europe which, as we know, receives the biggest numbers of tourists worldwide. In the publication you will find statistics dating from 2010. The most recent meetings of the Europe region took place in Batumi, a Georgian resort city on the Black Sea: “54thMeeting of the UNWTO Commission for Europe and Seminar on “Branding Tourism Destinations in a Connected World”.

After seeing the chosen theme, it comes as no surprise that the problem seemingly in trend, since this is Europe (including the European cultural routes), is finding a brand which distinguishes this destination from the others, and yet in coherence with the other regions in the same area. Nor will it be a surprise that the same specialists are speaking to all levels of the organisations, repeating generalised speeches which barely change for each audience. Perhaps Europe is seen by these experts as a predominantly western economic union of 27 countries who must outline a framework brand, as the European Union is researching at the moment. Perhaps the conception of Europe rests on a group of routes and thematic networks which must, at all costs, find coherence, as the Council of Europe manages with its geographical and cultural assortment which stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals. Or even, as the UNWTO envisages for its members, the effort of applying this coherence to an area which stretches from the Atlantic to the Caspian.

Batumi by night, 2008

To form your own opinion, you can download all the communications from this meeting in Powerpoint form: “A brand is a promise made to the consumer”, says one of them, while the introduction to the seminar states it unequivocally: “Brands are a promise, a set of values and ideas. Brands attach an emotional value to any destination. Our emotions are unique. Tourism is all about living experiences and feeling new sensations and this is why tourism destinations must be branded. This seminar will help to achieve greater awareness about the added value of effective brand design, development and management.” And for the sake of completeness, “When everyone is talking about the importance of local identities, authenticity and uniqueness, can local branding really fit in with regional and national branding?” asks Eulogio Bordas, representative of THR – Innovative Tourism Consultants.

In this light, the delegate for Romania talked at length about how the country, a green enclave stretching down to the Black Sea, had become, in the semantics of tourism experts, the ‘Carpathian Garden’, a slogan which was entrusted to a number of the nation’s sports ambassadors in order to popularise it around the world.

Furthermore, you can read a very interesting provisional study presenting theories for development to 2030.

 

In any case, thanks to the communication from THR – Innovative Tourism Consultants, you can know everything going through the heads, or rather the minds, of the customers when it comes to identifying a brand. The question is whether you want to address customers in the market’s traditional sense, or the inquiring minds which want only to receive the fragments of knowledge they are missing and the tools to go further. Sometimes you want a little less brand Europe theory, a little more reflexion on destination Europe, or yet more thought on the nature and makeup of the aspect of Europe which lives in the mind.

In the face of this need for branding, a new ideology – in the sense of a body of ideas – is being born: that of brand identity. This is replacing another ideology which has been predominant for a very long time: the ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ cultural identity, applied to rural destinations in particular. As Rachid Amirou said 20 years ago, “imagination helps us give simple descriptions of the relationship between a subject and the other areas of the mind’s activity: art, thought, myths, religion and tourism (…) the language of tourists forms aesthetic judgments of places and moments which were never expected.”

Is it about making tourists conform to brands, or about letting them create their own connections amid a wide range of values and aesthetics through open proposals? I think you will have understood, with all due respect to marketing specialists, that I lean and have always leant towards the second approach.

Remarks: “Accordingly, the European economy has not been left unaffected by the impact of the global economic crisis whose immediate repercussions have been most notable in the tourism sector. The mature economy of Europe is expected to struggle in 2012. As WTTC indicates, the prospects for Travel & Tourism growth in Europe for 2012 are precarious. Current forecasts suggest a 0.3% increase in Travel & Tourism direct GDP for the region overall, but this will be propped up by newer economies such as Poland and Russia. A decline of 0.3% is expected across the European Union. Consumer spending is set to tighten as austerity measures kick in, and there continues to be considerable uncertainty around the future of the euro-zone and the peripheral economies of Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Despite the gloomy forecasts, the tourism industry will never cease to be an integral component of the European economy and a significant driver for growth and employment. The year 2012 may be another year full of challenges for Europe but, hopefully, tourism will survive these as it has overcome a wide range of obstacles since the onset of the 21st century.” 

(Mr. Spyridon Parthenis, Head of the International Relations Directorate, General Secretariat of Tourism, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Greece, Chairman of the UNWTO Commission for Europe).