1) Improving policy making in tourism
Tourism sector increasingly evidences its key role in
contributing to the global economic development, positively affecting
employment and industry growth dynamics, generating higher than average
domestic value added. Just to illustrate the weight of tourism industry, in the
OECD area it directly contributes on average 4.1% of GDP, 5.9% of employment
and 21.3% of service exports to the throughput yearly results (2014 data).
Last decades led to new social conditions and demographic
changes in term of mobility. Higher level of life expectance, increased welfare
led to the increase of the number of persons travelling for leisure or
business. International tourist arrivals surpassed 1.1 billion in 2014 (World
Tourism Organization 2016 reporting data), following a 12-months resurgence in
arrivals to OECD countries (6.4%), which increased at a faster rate than the EU-28
average (4.4%). On a larger time-period (2010 to 2014), OECD annual growth rate
reached 4.6% while for EU28 the annual increased touched 4.0%. This is a
stronger performance by OECD countries compared with the previous reporting
period (2008-12), when was recorded an average annual growth in arrivals of
1.9%.
Having in mind EU leading position in world tourism as
a main source and main destination of international tourist flows, and as
consequence the tourism sector results as the third largest economic factor in
the European Union having a wide-ranging impact on economic growth, employment
and social development, a specific picture of the sector in support of this
assumption will be described later on in the section dedicated to quantitative
EU tourism development.
With such an effective viewpoint, It is quite apparent
that tourism is considered a significant economic sector in countries around
the world pushing governments to develop active and innovative policies to
build a competitive, inclusive and sustainable tourism development, backing and
supporting integrated strategies aimed at increasing the policy coherence and
the effectiveness of public and public/private actions in close partnership in
tourism economic sector both at national and local/regional level. An approach
that acquires even more relevance in the context of global economic and
financial crisis experienced in recent years, characterised by slow growth and high
unemployment rates, forcing countries to continue to deal with the consequences
and adjust to a new reality, working on the development of new solutions, tools
and services that help to enhance the competitiveness of the tourism industry.
Increasing interdependence and interconnectedness
across and within economies (previously underestimated), including between policy
dimensions and objectives, have become a persistent characteristic of the
global economy. A key aspect of this interconnectedness and complexity relates
to the relationship between growth, environment and social outcomes, with a
good understanding of the relationship between environmental policies and economic
growth vital for policy-makers aiming to achieve greener growth (OECD, 2011). The
sustainable issue becomes a priority
objective in fostering innovation, economic growth and development while
ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and
environmental services and relieving impacts of economic activity on
environmental systems. The same for the stated inclusive growth aiming to improve both material and non-material
living standards of a large section of the population.
The action intended to address the impact of the
global economic and financial crisis led to an overall awareness of the need
for policies for related policy areas, to identify solutions that uphold both
economic growth and a fairer distribution of benefits, through a better
governance and stronger institutions, to increase international longer
time-scales regulatory co-operation and to improve international policy
co-ordination, as suggested since 2010 by OECD, to effectively improve the
competitiveness and sustainability of tourism by ”allowing collective action in areas where individual countries may underestimate
the external effects of domestic policies and/or may face strong incentives to
act alone or to free ride on other countries’ policy efforts” (OECD Tourism
Papers, 2015).
In this sense, due to its cross-cutting and fragmented
nature, tourism requires co-ordination of government, both horizontal and
vertical, as well as private sector business involvement. Governments are committed
in tourism in a variety of capacities including border security, the regulation
of markets such as aviation, controlling or managing tourism attractions such
as national parks, skills development and funding the development of roads and
other infrastructure. While tourism services are primarily provided by micro,
small and medium-sized operators (often most effectively represented by
industry associations), some sectors, such as aviation and online travel
agents, are dominated by multi-national businesses operating at a global scale.
Unless policy makers and industry work together effectively, this complex system
is unlikely to function optimally.
In June 2010, the European Commission adopted the Communication “Europe, the world's No. 1 tourist
destination – a new political framework for tourism in Europe” setting out
a new strategy and action plan for EU tourism. Four priorities for action were
identified:
1) to stimulate competitiveness in the European tourism sector,
2) to promote the development of sustainable, responsible, and
high-quality tourism,
3) to consolidate Europe's image as a collection of sustainable,
high-quality destinations,
4) to maximise the potential of EU financial policies for developing
tourism.
A regularly updated implementation rolling plan has been developed that
outlines the major initiatives to be implemented as part of the strategy, in
collaboration with public authorities, tourism associations and other
public/private tourism stakeholders.
2) Tourism
SMEs value chains and added value in the sustainable tourism sector favouring
the development
As previously highlighted, tourism represents a
significant share of the services economy representing a resilient activity
with the capability to stimulate economies’ dynamics and helping in creating
employment, stimulating capital markets, attracting foreign capital, both at
national and local level. Even if not able to fully avoid the impacts of the
global economic and financial crisis,
tourism sector nonetheless proved resilient to these shocks demonstrating wide
capacity to adapt and rapidly react toward a moderate but constant recovery, adjusting
to the changing market and new economic conditions. Though, to fully support and
confirm the growth tendency, further implementative actions are necessary in
order to ensure that policies to support tourism growth are satisfactory fitting
for purpose in an increasingly inter-linked policy environment, promoting a greener
and more inclusive growth.
In order to maximise the full economic potential that
tourism has to offer, the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Local
Development and Tourism suggested (2015) a range of inter-linked policy
challenges need to be addressed, including:
- §promoting a robust institutional framework, including greater vertical
and horizontal integration;
- §promoting a policy mix supporting tourism growth and open tourism
markets,
- §identifying new high value sources of growth and competitiveness in
tourism, including
- § innovation, green growth, and skills,
- §addressing long-term issues, such as globalisation, demographic change,
infrastructure quality and environmental degradation.
A maximisation accomplishment is even more necessary
in a framework of weak economic recovery, considering that tourism can also represent a
value-added sector on which can rely for the national development
policies’ effort beside traditional knowledge-intensive/high intensive industry
high value-added (HVA)) sectors (as for R&D), taking into account specific
focus on i) inclusive growth; ii) induced small-scale business operations; iii)
infrastructure development and maintenance; and iv) the promotion of cultural
authenticity and assets of destinations (OECD Tourism Papers, 2015).
Tourism economic sector possesses as HVA an essential
component offering potential social and environmental advantages beside the traditional
economic benefits. If planned and managed with a focus on sustainability, it contributes
to labour market opportunities and development (new workplaces, long-term
employment, qualified workers, experience skills, higher revenues etc.),
favouring increased welfare, social integration and socio-political stability,
enabling ideal conditions for the development of the economic productive system
(both for urban and rural areas), inducing activity increase from other sectors,
attracting new capitals, creating new industries, less developed areas
development, global market reach and economic diversification. Furthermore,
from an environmental perspective, HVA element can contribute to the development
of green technologies, while access to sustainable-made
infrastructures and attractions developed for tourism purposes can have a
positive impact on locals’ quality of life. In this context, tourism can play an important role in improving the
attractiveness of places “to live, work and enjoy”, which in turn “promotes well-being for locals and helps to
attract the educated young professionals upon which high value-added sectors
increasingly depend” (Glaeser, 2010).
The impact should also support regional and local
economies; benefits as employment opportunities, income inequalities
reduction, investments, are direct consequences of tourism result promotion and
development of activities, infrastructure and facilities to accommodate and
attract domestic and international visitors also in non-urban areas and areas
with low power of tourism attraction. This represents a potential spill-over
for retail trade, food, lodging and accommodation services stimulus, as for transport
infrastructure and services for an increased tourist traffic. Moreover, we have
to consider the positive potential impact extended to surrounding areas through
supply chains to meet growing demand of services and leisure.
In rural regions, tourism constitutes an important
lever for economic development and growth, often articulated around local
gastronomy, farming, culture (arts and crafts), and outdoor activities. It thus
presents important economic benefits to rural areas and constitutes an increasingly
important market segment, providing significant opportunities for rural
businesses to diversify income opportunities (e.g. farm stays) and participate
in local supply chains (OECD, 2015).
Tourism SMEs value chains
The tourism sector is characterised by a high level of
fragmentation and heterogeneity (OECD, 2015). The sector covers a wide range of
industries including accommodation, tour operators and travel agents, but also restaurants
and cafés, tourism transportation, attractions, etc. Tourism value chains are
often international or ‘global’ in nature, as the origin of consumers in
tourism often is different from the tourism destination.
Tourism role is specifically relevant in the economic
system due to its characteristics; entrepreneurship is mainly based on small
and medium sized enterprises, often family-owned, allowing a high degree of flexibility to adjust to meet
the specific demand for specific goods and specialised services (including
transport, accommodation, travel, additional services, new niche services,
etc.) in particular period of the year, offering different proposal to
different tourist and travellers budgets and spending capacity.
