Hospitality Europe calls on candidate MEPs to pick the industry's 5 priorities up

Hospitality Europe calls on candidate MEPs to pick the industry’s 5 priorities up

16 May 2019. Today, at the occasion of HOTREC’s 78th General Assembly in Helsinki, HOTREC Members discussed about the upcoming European elections and have called on the candidate MEPs to pick the industry’s 5 priorities, identified in HOTREC’s White paper, up for the new EU mandate.  HOTREC Members were thankful to the outgoing Members of the European Parliament for their support to sustainable tourism development and innovation and called for a renewed partnership for the period 2019-2020. HOTREC’s White Paper sets out the following 5 key priorities for the next EU legislative mandate:

• Further levelling the playing field in the accommodation and food service market in light of the fast professionalisation of business providers using ‘collaborative’ economy platforms.
• Revise the EU regulatory framework regulating online platforms’ liability to reflect their increased role on the markets, namely the E-commerce directive.
• Ensures better regulation agenda which focuses primarily on large cross-border issues and better considers sectoral specific concerns.
• Foster voluntary initiatives on nutrition for local food services instead of horizontal EU legislation.
• Make the fight against skills shortage a truly EU case supported by concrete policy actions.

“The hospitality industry is a key driving force of the European economy, with its 2 million 11,9 million workers and 1,6 million new jobs created in 4 years. It is a dynamically growing sector worth continuing listening to in the upcoming 5 years” said Mr. Jens Zimmer Christensen, President of HOTREC. “We are thankful to the EU Institutions for an excellent cooperation over the past 5 years and look forward to a continued partnership to achieve a sustainably growing European tourism market for the benefit of Europe’s economy and society based on HOTREC’s 5 priorities” added Mr. Christian de Barrin, CEO of HOTREC at the conclusions of the associations’ General Assembly in Helsinki.

For further information: www.hotrec.eu PRESS CONTACT: Alessia Angiulli, +32(0)2 504 78 45, [email protected]

HOTREC represents the hotel, restaurant and café industry at European level. The sector counts in total around 2 million businesses, being 99,5% small and medium sized enterprises (91% are micro enterprises, i.e. employing less than 10 people). These businesses make up some 60% of value added. The industry provides some 11,9 million jobs in the EU alone. Together with the other tourism industries, the sector is the 3rd largest industry in Europe. HOTREC brings together 43 national associations representing the interest of this industry in 31 different European countries.