ISO Requirements and guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the tourism industry - PAS 5643 now published

ISO/PAS 5643:2021(en), Tourism and related services — Requirements and guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the tourism industry has been published on 18 May 2021.

As a PAS (Publicly Available Specification), the ISO deliverable provides guidelines rather than a global international standard. The guidelines introduce requirements for a broad variety of tourism activities, including hotel accommodation, catering services and night leisure, as well as ancillary services such as restrooms, gyms and swimming pools.

HOTREC has provided detailed comments to previous drafts and actively taken part in ISO TC228 meetings in which the PAS was discussed. HOTREC believes that the ISO PAS provides hospitality establishments with a workable framework that can improve the trust and confidence of tourists in tourism services amidst the ongoing pandemic.

ISO encourages all National Standards Bodies to adopt the guidelines at national level and encourages all tourism stakeholders to use ISO PAS 5643 in order to harmonize measures across sectors and countries.

Following the adoption of the ISO Gudelines, it is expected that the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) will endorse identically the ISO PAS 5643 as CEN Workshop Agreement CWA 5643, and this will be published on 19 May 2021. HOTREC has not participated in CEN CWA meetings but provided general comments to the CEN secretariat.

The full version of the PAS needs to be purchased. HOTREC is pleased to share in confidence here below the most version of the PAS it has received shortly before the finalisation and publication of the document.