According to a cohort of Members of the European Parliament who voted on the matter on March 25, post-pandemic tourism will need help to become cleaner, safer and more sustainable.
MEPs have called for a new European strategy to make tourism cleaner, safer and more sustainable and to get it back on its feet after the pandemic, which also includes a common vaccination certificate.
“With summer just around the corner, we want to avoid past mistakes and introduce coordinated and uniform EU measures such as a test protocol before departure, a vaccination certificate and a hygiene seal to make it easier for citizens to travel at no cost,” said Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, MEP from Portugal and author of the report calling for the new strategy, in a statement.
Tourism is one of the sectors hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It employs around 27 million people and accounts for around 10 percent of the EU’s gross domestic product.
Six million jobs are currently at risk. Europe, the world’s most popular travel destination, recorded 66 percent fewer international tourists in the first half of 2020 and 97 percent fewer in the second half of the year.
Continued short-term financial support is vital to the survival of the sector, the report says, and EU countries are urged to include travel and tourism in their COVID recovery plans.
It also calls for public and private investment in digitization and general modernization of the sector, and calls on countries to consider temporarily lowering VAT rates for travel and tourism services.
To restore freedom of movement, the report calls for a common vaccination certificate, which could be an alternative to PCR testing and quarantine requirements once vaccines are available to everyone and there is “sufficient scientific evidence” that vaccinated people do not transmit the virus.
According to the report, the quarantine should remain the instrument of last resort.
It comes after the European Commission proposed a digital green certificate based on the proposal in the report on March 17th.
The report also says the pandemic has shifted consumer preferences to greener options that bring them closer to nature. It calls for a roadmap for developing more sustainable forms of tourism in order to reduce the sector’s ecological footprint.
Other proposals in the report include an EU Hygiene Certification Seal that certifies minimum standards for the prevention and control of COVID-19 viruses to restore consumer confidence in tourism and travel.
It also calls for a new EU agency for tourism.
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