Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-07-Speech-3-200"
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"en.20050907.19.3-200"2
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"Mr President, tourism is a journey and a voyage. In the past, voyagers were people who went out into the world in order to discover more about it, to learn something and to return home with new experiences and skills. During their travels across Europe, they also paid visits to the universities. This led to the emergence of a European identity, an awareness of European values and a Europe of universities, cathedrals and superb artists and craftsmen.
Tourism nowadays has changed into the pursuit of instant pleasure. I still have frequent occasion to quote the slogan of the French Ski Schools, which says that ‘pleasure has to be learnt’. It is only when we make an effort to gain new skills or knowledge that we appreciate them. Unfortunately, modern tourism is very much like visiting a Europe-wide chain of supermarkets that all subscribe to the same principles, namely to be cheap, easily accessible and preferably identical in the majority of cases.
People now travel at lightning speed. We have less and less time, and so we devour one tourist attraction after another. The tourist industry is adapting to this phenomenon by selling as many colour pictures as possible of the sea, the mountains and the swimming pools. The phrase ‘tourism creates jobs’ is repeated like a mantra, but the cost of such jobs is frequently the mindless breaking of visitor number records. The resort or attraction boasting the highest number of visitors is considered to be the best.
This report is important because Europe must promote high-quality tourism and tackle the challenge of mass tourism. This is especially true because Europe is now lending its backing to the development of regional airports and cheap airlines. The words ‘travel’ and ‘voyage’ should regain their original meanings. Educational programmes must be put in place with a view to protecting the natural environment and historical heritage, and new initiatives are needed to promote sustainable tourism. We should not forget that love of world heritage, nature and the non-material stems from knowledge of the values of the world that surround us, or in other words from our own ‘small fatherlands’."@en1
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