mr president i would first of all like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs for their efforts on what is actually quite a technical report
the commission's proposal on tourism statistics has given us a good opportunity to revise the existing legal framework on the collection of statistical data on tourism in europe
this is especially relevant at this time when all eyes are on developing a strategy for european tourism policy on the back of the new eu competences in this field
updating our tourism statistics database can in turn play an important role in giving policy makers a good basis for implementing successful tourism policies
for these reasons the approach that i took supported by our shadows in formulating parliament's position was to strongly support the aim of improving the completeness relevance and comparability of the statistics on offer in this field bringing the statistics more up to date with new trends in the tourism sector to reflect for instance the increase in internet bookings and in short-stay trips
we are all agreed that improving the competitiveness of eu tourism is a way to keep visitors coming to europe so it is important that the statistics we collect keep pace with the changing nature of the sector identifying current and potential trends in that sector and monitoring supply and demand
in this way the statistics collected can be a useful tool for supporting the decision maker in the tourism industry
on the one hand it is also important to ensure that the updated statistics are as complete as possible giving a good overview of tourism across europe whilst on the other hand bearing in mind the need to keep the burden down for respondents
it was for that reason that i was keen to see a final agreement on incoming data collection on same-day visits which we now have in the final agreement as same-day visits account for a large part of tourism activity
parliament also pushed for the regulation to cover areas of data collection which until now have not been thought of as relevant for tourism statistics but which we felt needed to be included as part of the recognition of tourism's important social economic and environmental impact
i thought that the collection of data on employment and economic expenditure the so-called tourism satellite accounts was particularly relevant in this regard and we pushed hard for this to be included as part of the regulation
the final agreement with council now includes a provision on drawing up pilot studies that will enable member states to show the effects of tourism on the economy and on employment which i hope will contribute to a better understanding of the true size and value of our tourism industry
the final agreement also sees the inclusion of pilot studies that show the effect of tourism on the environment an interesting avenue to pursue given the need for a sustainable tourism approach
the inclusion of data on accessibility to tourist accommodation for persons with reduced mobility which was the only real sticking point that we had with council is also now an important inclusion
following parliament's insistence on this point council finally backed down and agreed to its inclusion as part of the basic information collected from tourist accommodation establishments
together with the agreements that we have reached on restricting the delegation of powers to the commission which i also had some concerns about i am very pleased that first-reading agreement has been found with council
i hope parliament will lend its strong support to the agreement in wednesday's plenary vote
