Tourism plays an important role in European Union because
of its economic and employment potential, as well as its social and
environmental implications, as tourism statistics are not only used to monitor
the EU’s tourism policies but also its regional and sustainable development
policies. EU Tourism sector involves Member citizens in over 1.2 billion
tourism travels for personal or business purposes (EU-28, EUROSTAT estimate for
2014).
Tourism industry consists of a wide range of products
and destinations and involves several different stakeholders including both
public (government) and private players. To develop the tourism sector, the EC
has been proactive in formulating policies to encourage competitiveness amongst
the foreign players investing in the sector.
The European Union tourism sector is a major industry
in EU that generates a lot of foreign revenue and contributes significantly to
the EU GDP, accounting in 2014 for 3.6% of the total ratio, quantifyable in US$669.9
billion (WTTC estimate).
Following to EUROSTAT data (see Table below), in 2012, one in ten enterprises in the European
non-financial business economy belonged to the tourism industries. These
2.2 million enterprises employed an estimated 12.0 million persons. Enterprises
in industries with tourism related activities accounted for 9.0% of the persons
employed in the whole non-financial business economy and 21.9% of persons
employed in the services sector. The tourism industries' shares in total
turnover and value added at factor cost were relatively lower, with the tourism
industries accounting for 3.6% of the turnover and 5.5% of the value added of
the non-financial business economy.
The relevance of tourism industry growth has a direct
impact on the expansion of EU employment, also contributing to the
creation of job conditions for economically less advantaged socio-demographic
groups (women, young) or regions. Moreover, there is a general positive
reaction of tourist activity as EUROSTAT, comparing 2014 regional data on
tourism intensity (e.g. the annual number of nights spent by tourists per capita
of local population), assessed that EU regions with high tourist activity tend
to have lower unemployment rates below the national average.
On the other hand, it should be pointed out that Jobs
are less stable in tourism than in the rest of the economy due to seasonality,
preponderance for not permanent and part-time contracts, low earnings, etc..
Out of the over 12 million people employed in tourism
activities in 2012 (see Table below),
nearly 7 million work in the food and beverage industry, while 2 million are
employed in transport. The accommodation sector (not including real estate)
accounts for 2.4 million jobs in the EU; travel agencies and tour operators
account for nearly half a million. The three industries that rely almost
entirely on tourism (accommodation, travel agencies/tour operators, air
transport – the so-called "selected tourism industries") employ 3.3
million people.
The EU tourism industries account for 22.0% of people
employed in the services sector. When looking at the total non-financial
business economy, they account for 9.0% of people employed.
In the selected tourism industries, 22.0% of people
work in micro-enterprises that employ fewer than 10 people (as defined by EU Recommendation
2003/361), which is significantly lower than the 29.0% observed for the total
non-financial business economy (see Table
below). Looking at the three selected tourism industries separately, over
one-third of employment in travel agencies and tour operators is in
micro-enterprises (34.0%); for the accommodation sector this figure is 23.0%.
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Although the economic crisis led to a fall in overall
employment, this was not the case for the services sector, including the core
tourism industries such as accommodation (which showed an average annual growth rate of 0.9% since
2008), evidencing the tourism industry’s potential and capacity as a growth
sector, even in times of economic turmoil that significantly affect other
sectors of the economy.
From the tourism demand side, residents (aged
15 and above) from within the EU-28 made an estimated 1.2 billion tourism trips
in 2014, for personal or business purposes. Short trips (of 1 to 3 nights)
accounted for more than half (57.4 %) of the total number of trips made, while
three quarters (74.9 %) of all trips made were to domestic destinations, with
the remainder abroad. In some countries, more than half of all trips were made to
destinations abroad. EUROSTAT estimated that some 61.1 % of the EU-28’s
population travelled for personal purposes in 2012.
From the supply perspective, it is estimated
that there were just over 570 thousand tourist accommodation establishments
active within the EU-28 in 2014 and that together they provided nearly 31
million bed places. Nearly one third (32.2 %) of all the bed places in the
EU-28 were concentrated in just two of the EU Member States, namely France and Italy.
During recent years, the number of nights spent in
tourist accommodation establishments has generally shown an upward trend. EU-28
residents spent an estimated 2.6 billion nights abroad on tourism trips in 2014.
The economic importance of international tourism
can be measured by looking at the ratio of international travel receipts
relative to GDP; these data are from balance of payments statistics and include
business travel, as well as travel for pleasure. In 2014, EUROSTAT assessed
that while the EU-28 average rate of travel receipts and expenditure in balance
of payments in regard to GDP was 0.8%, the state evidenced wide
differentiations among the EU Member States, with the highest ratio of travel
receipts to GDP in Croatia (17.2 %), Malta (14.4 %) and Cyprus (12.3 %),
confirming the importance of tourism to these countries (see Table below). In absolute terms, the highest international
travel receipts in 2014 were recorded in Spain (€49 billion) and France (€43.2
billion), followed by the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany (all three
recording receipts of €33 to 35 billion).
Germany recorded the highest level of expenditure on
international travel, totalling €70.3 billion in 2014, followed by the United
Kingdom (€47.8 billion) and France (€36.7 billion). Spain was the EU Member
State with the highest level of net receipts from travel in 2014 (€35.4
billion), while Germany recorded the biggest deficit (€-37.6 billion).
