8 February 2022 – EFFAT, the voice of 10 million tourism workers in Europe, welcomes the European Commission’s Tourism Transition Pathway (TTP) published on 4 February 2022 and presented today at the EU Industry Days 2022, and shares its vision to relaunch a resilient sector: through the offer of decent work and attractive career paths.
EFFAT, together with the other European Trade Union Federations representing workers in tourism, ETF and UNI Europa, has been actively involved in the extensive stakeholders’ co-creation process which started in June 2021. At several occasions, namely the Stakeholder Consultation on the Staff Working Document “Scenarios towards co-creation of transition pathway for tourism for a more resilient, innovative and sustainable ecosystem”, the online workshops, the stakeholder feedback meetings, and the Industrial Forum, we have spoken with one voice about the need for stable and quality employment, with fair and equal pay, full social security coverage, respect of workers’ rights to organise and to bargain collectively as essential tools to set tourism on the right path towards renewal and resilience.
EFFAT is pleased to see that the TTP acknowledges that new skills profiles must be incorporated in the overall policy and curricula for vocational education and training to meet the skills needs of the tourism workforce; this includes building on existing VET structures in Member States, and involving current actors in the field, such as education authorities, social partners, and institutions for vocational and higher education.
However, EFFAT regrets to see that other important proposals put forward by the trade unions were not taken up, such as the need for strong regulation of short-term accommodation rentals in order to ensure fair competition; for more detailed statistics on employment in tourism; for giving more citizens access to tourism by boosting the demand side through paid leave and decent wages; for giving a special role to sectoral social partners and the joint take up of TTP in social dialogue and cooperation; and for complementing all measures by a just transition framework, including socio-economic impact assessments.
Tourism is the first of the 14 ‘ecosystems’ identified in the Commission’s Industrial Strategy (Updated in May 2021) where such a ‘pathway’ was accomplished, to accompany the transformation of the sector in the twin transition to a green and digital economy, while increasing its resilience.
