At the Destination Europe Summit 2025, industry leaders and policy makers discussed solutions for sustainable tourism, tackling seasonality, overtourism and the environmental challenges facing Europe's top destinations.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Europe runs historically in six months out of 12 and that means that in a very short
00:11period of time, there is masses of travelers from all around the world that visit this,
00:16the tiniest continent in the world, I think of the second smallest, that gets the highest
00:19number of visitors.
00:20We have to have dedicated line for financing in the tourism because sustainability is costing.
00:30Europe remains the first tourist destination in the world, but to remain competitive, the
00:39continent must face many challenges.
00:41The sector of European tourism was reunited in Brussels for the Destination Europe Summit
00:462025, co-organized by Euronews and the European Travel Commission.
00:50If growth returns to its levels before the COVID-19 pandemic, professionals and political
00:55decision-makers want to meet the current challenges of sustainable tourism.
00:59When it comes to making tourism more sustainable, that fits into the bigger agenda of the European
01:05Union to make sure that all economic activities diminish the impact on climate.
01:12We need to work with small companies when it comes to circular economy, when it comes
01:18to dealing with waste, when it comes to organizing tourism in such a way that those who do tourism,
01:26those tourists have this reassurance that what they do is actually good for the climate
01:31and environment.
01:32The political world emphasizes that sustainable tourism, one of the key themes of the event,
01:37must be based on three pillars, the economy, the environment and employment, and for this
01:42we need financial resources.
01:44So it means that we are fighting with the over-tourism, we are fighting with seasonality,
01:49we are fighting with shortage of housing for the young families in the tourist destinations,
01:55we are fighting with climate changes, we have the problem with the local communities obviously.
02:00The European Commission emphasizes that 17 billion euros have been transferred from the
02:05EU budget to Member States for tourism.
02:08This envelope is added to that of the national authorities.
02:12One of the challenges raised during the first debate of this Destination Europe Summit is
02:17to limit the phenomenon of over-tourism.
02:19Questioned on the margins of this round table, Greek professionals believe that it is necessary
02:24to invest to convince tourists to leave the beaten path.
02:30The regions in Greece that are very much well developed touristically, for instance the
02:35south-eastern, which is basically the islands of the Aegean, their gross product is 90% from
02:43tourism industry, while other areas it's very low.
02:46So what we are trying to do, as I said earlier, are trying to fix the infrastructure, rebrand
02:53those areas to make them accessible to tourism so we can bring their level up.
03:01Another development axis to facilitate access and travel is to extend the tourist season
03:07in Europe.
03:08The challenge is to be able to offer activities throughout the year for the benefit of all
03:14actors.
03:18It's very important to spread those tourism visitors across the year to make sure that
03:24communities and the hosts that are benefiting from this tourism and those visits can actually
03:31do that on a full year scale and not just in a short period.
03:34That creates crowd, creates impact, very negative impact on the ecosystems, the environment,
03:40the housing and everything else.
03:43The growth of sustainable tourism is inseparable from a more sustainable transport.
03:47The aviation sector is often outlawed, but it's through airports that 2.5 billion passengers
03:52arrived in Europe last year.
03:54One of the tracks mentioned during the event by the airports is misery, among other things,
03:59on the multinodality to reduce their CO2 emissions.
04:02It's important because of two things.
04:04First, because of the sustainability imperative, because when you look at access to and from
04:09the airports from the local communities, that usually contributes up to 50% of the emissions
04:15that are due to the airport operations.
04:17So it's very important for airports to be connected and well connected to the public
04:21transport network because that's a way of reducing emissions and becoming more efficient
04:25in accessing the airport.
04:28The participants at the Destination Europe Summit 2025 were able to share their experiences
04:33and their expectations for the sector.
04:35Many of them consider it important to strengthen the European brand to highlight the assets
04:41and the tourist diversity of the entire continent.