Bruxelles wants to make Europe more accessible to tourists

The European Commission proposes several measures to relax the regulations surrounding the issuance of visas, including the implementation of a "touring visa".

In order to help Europe's tourism sector stimulate growth, the European Commission offered several ways to clarify and accelerate the visa application process. It also plans to create a "touring visa" to allow non EU nationals to enter the Schengen area and travel throughout it for one year. These new regulations especially target countries with strong potential for wealthy tourists such as Russia, China, the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, India and South Africa.

Other proposals have also been made to establish a series of clearer regulations and to speed up procedures, increase consular cooperation and facilitate regular visits.

"Our proposal will help Europe's tourism sector at a time when international competition is becoming fiercer with an increased number of countries that rely on tourism for their growth. The new rules in terms of visas constitute the response to this challenge. The resulting changes will help the tourism sector manage the expected strong growth of tourist flows to Europe. Tourism is the growth engine of the EU and it was the primary stronghold of the European economy during the recent crisis," declared Antonio Tajani, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for industry and entrepreneurship.

"Europe must develop a more intelligent visa policy. We must attract more tourists, businessmen and businesswomen, researchers, students, artists and performing artists," added Cécilia Malmström, EU Home Affairs Commissioner.

According to a study by the Commission, in 2012 the Union lost 6.6 million potential travelers from the six countries with the highest volume of travelers due to visa application procedures that are too difficult. Relaxing the regulations would thus represent a 30% to 60% increase in the number of trips taken into the Schengen area from these same six countries. The potential is for a total of 130 billion euros in direct spending in five years and results in the creation of 1.3 million jobs in tourism and associated sectors.