The ECOSERT results can make
significant contributions to EU policies related
to tourism, which have assumed increasing importance
in recent years. A shift towards more integrated
approaches and policies in the 1990s and the
issuance of the Green Paper on the Role of the
Union in the Field of Tourism in 1995 has been
followed by policies which recognise tourism's
potential role in creating jobs and reducing
regional and socio-economic disparities. Following
the work of the Tourism Advisory Committee,
set up in 2000, the Commission through Communication
665 Working Together for the Future of European
Tourism, recommends policy instruments for sustainable
tourism, which ECOSERT has addressed. This includes
the setting up of a network of pilot regions
to promote sustainability in tourism, increasing
political co-operation and partnership and enhancing
co-operation and consistency in tourism policies
among the stakeholders involved in tourism (including
the European Commission, Member States, regional
and local authorities, industry, associations,
and the tourist destinations themselves). Based
on the Communication, the Council of Ministers
adopted on 21st May 2002 a resolution specifically
on the Future of European Tourism urging closer
monitoring of the impact of EU legislation on
the tourism sector. The European Parliament
also expressed the need for tourism to be integrated
with the use, promotion and enhancement of environmental,
artistic, historical and cultural resources.
ECOSERT has produced results of
great significance to these policy initiatives
and the RESTP methodology, including the use
of EMAS, presents a tool to improve the quality
of tourist products (notably eco-cultural assets)
whilst promoting environmental protection and
sustainable development in tourism, two key
pan-European objectives. The RESTP plans in
each region meanwhile can contribute towards
the more equitable distribution of tourism activities
in favour of disadvantaged regions or areas,
and towards more balanced socio-economic development
in Magnesia, Dee Estuary and Avellino.
Since ECOSERT was conceptualised
five years ago, the project has assumed significant
relevance to recent European issues and policies
regarding sustainable tourism. Five years ago,
when ECOSERT was first mooted the issues it
addressed were not high on the agenda of European
Community institutions. Today these issues hold
centre stage, not only inviting responses from
the wide variety of actors they necessarily
implicate, but also calling for the further
development of appropriate indicators and policy
instruments that should enable to address the
imperatives they have engendered.
Enmeshed as it is with the challenges
of devising a different approach to tourism
development so as to achieve the henceforth
determining goal of sustainability, the ECOSERT
Partnership is ideally placed to contribute,
both conceptually and practically, to the Community's
forays into such new policy areas as called
upon by its decision-making institutions. Just
three specific functions which the ECOSERT Partnership
could play, in its present or, hopefully, broadened
form given the prospect of more signatories
to the Volos Declaration, dovetail perfectly
with the stated policy aims of European institutions.
First, as stated above, ECOSERT could act as
the initial nucleus of this "network of
pilot regions to promote sustainability in tourism"
(as suggested by Working Group D in Communication
665), establishing best practices and furthering
tourism development principles for others to
emulate. Secondly, the bodies that provided
scientific and technical support to the ECOSERT
partnership could contribute their know-how
to the establishment of "the technical
body" (or tourism observatory), in association
with other professional bodies (also called
for in Working Group D).
EMAS, which is referred to specifically
in the European Parliament's Resolution in April
2002, would act as the key sustainability indicator
called for by the Council of Ministers. And
finally, in order to promote sustainable tourism
development at the level of local and regional
authorities, as insisted by all Community institutions,
the instrument exists of applying the tried
methodology of RESTP, engaging local decision
makers and stakeholders at all levels and stages
of policy making.
The Declaration
of Volos, calling on regional and local
authorities to establish a network for planning
sustainable tourism with environmental management
of tourist destinations and activities, is very
relevant to these policy aims of the European
Union. The RESTP Guidelines and the EMAS Guide
meanwhile provide innovative tools, the former
for European regional authorities to bring forward
tourism as an integral part of regional planning
and the latter as a means to contribute to the
environmental sustainability of tourism destinations
and attractions. |
