Policy initiatives to making tourism resilient
Understanding relevant trends facilitates policy making. After all, policies aim at supporting tourism in the mid to long term. A variety of policies is already in place to make tourism resilient in case of an economic downturn. These policies may have been recently introduced in response to COVID-19 or were introduced previously. At the same time, trends may change the needs for certain policies to keep tourism prepared in case of crises.
Programme authorities for European Regional Development Fund programmes play a key role to initiate and implement relevant policy initiatives. 65% of the respondents indicated national or regional authorities responsible for the implementation of these programmes as main player initiating or implementing policy initiatives. In many cases these programme authorities would cooperate with organisations managing, coordinating and promoting tourism destinations. 46% of the respondents assessed tourism destination management organisations as relevant player to initiate or implement policy initiatives. 37% of the respondents see tourism businesses in charge and 31% see regional authorities other than EU programme bodies in charge. National authorities (22%) and civil society organisations (13%) are least often indicated as possible player to be in charge of policy initiatives.
Policy initiatives to promote digitalisation and strengthening partnerships are currently most in place preparing tourism for the future. These are among the types of policy instruments most frequently indicated by survey respondents. Also initiatives to improve coordination between players at local, regional and national levels as well as initiatives to promote research and innovation are often referred to. Initiatives to promote circular approaches and reducing the use of resources as well as initiatives to learn from others are current least often in place.
Policy initiatives promoting research, innovation and the use of technology are most relevant for future crises. In addition, policy initiatives to support SMEs and to promote digitalisation are important for the future. Initiatives to improve governance and integrated destination management and to promote circular approaches are perceived as least important for future crises.
Policy initiatives to promote digitalisation and strengthening partnerships become less relevant for future crises. Survey respondents indicate thus different types of policy initiatives as most relevant to keep tourism resilient for future crises. The figure below illustrates the relative importance of different types of policy instruments to make tourism resilient for the future (green and blue shades of the bar). All policy initiatives become more important for the future (illustrated by the green shades), except for initiatives promoting digitalisation and to strengthen partnerships. Fewer respondents indicated these types of policy initiatives as relevant to make tourism resilient for future crises compared to respondents that indicated these policy initiatives as currently in place.
