EU tourism ministers will hold a video conference on 1 March to discuss ways of helping the tourism sector recover from the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Finland will be represented at the meeting by State Secretary Kimmo Tiilikainen on behalf of Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä.
The informal meeting will be held at the initiative of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU. The meeting will discuss the effects of the pandemic on the tourism sector and consider joint EU measures to ensure a sustainable, digitalised and competitive tourism sector in the short and medium term.
“The coronavirus pandemic has set health security against economic and social activity. This is the case in tourism in particular. It is therefore important to develop tourism in a more sustainable direction by renewing tourism services," Tiilikainen says.
Collecting and utilizing data
“Decision-making within tourism must be based on up-to-date and timely information. We need more tools, funding and networking opportunities at EU level to develop knowledge-based management, also within tourism,” Tiilikainen says.
“It is also important for the recovery of tourism that we are able to maintain a positive attitude towards it during the pandemic, even if the opportunities for travel are limited at the moment,” he adds.
Tourism is one of the sectors most severely affected by the coronavirus. About 11.7 million people in the European Union, or 9% of the area’s workforce, earn a living from tourism. In Finland, the tourism sector employs more than 140,000 people.
