Naslov
Internet: http:// www.ecta.org/

Autori
Hendija, Zvjezdana

Izvornik
Tourism : an international interdisciplinary journal (1332-7461) 53 (2005), 1; 86-87

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, prikaz, stručni

Ključne riječi
ECTAA; Group of National Travel Agents and Tour operators Associations; international tourism association

Sažetak
This is the Internet address of the Group of National Travel Agents' and Tour Operators' Associations within the European Union (ECTAA). It is an international non-profit association with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The main aim of the ECTAA is to protect interests of the European travel agents and tour operators. Today, it is the leading organisation that represents interests of more than ten thousand European travel agencies and tour operators coming from 28 European countries which are, jointly, realising the overall annual turnover of about 60 billion Euros. The organisation has more than forty-four years of experience in the tourism industry. It was founded in 1961 in German town Bad Kreuznach by six members of the Common Market to represent and promote interests of their travel agents and operators (Benelux, Germany, France and Italy) under the name of the EEC-Group. Later, its headquarters were moved to Belgian Brussels, thus joining the large number of EU institutions concentrated there nowadays. In 1981, the EEC-Group has changed the name to the European Community Travel Agents Association - ECTAA. Furthermore, it has evolved from networking group to an international organisation by growing in size, from 6 to 29 members at the moment. Over the past forty-four years, the initially defined aim of the organisation remained the same, but its influence has now spread over the wider region. There are three kinds of memberships available in the ECTAA: full membership, affiliate membership or observer status. Those national tourism associations of travel agents and tour operators that come from the fifteen EU member countries before its enlargement in 2004, realise full membership status in the ECTAA (6 funding Member states and Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Finland and Spain, which is the only one represented by two associations in ECTAA). After EU's greatest enlargement in May 2004, the full members of the ECTAA have also become tourist associations from Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. Affiliate members of the ECTAA are Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey, and observer status have Norway and Switzerland. Internet address of these national organisations of travel agents and tour operators are directly linked to ECTAA's web page, and are easily accessible. However, the ECTAA is still open to all other national tourism associations of the European countries, especially for those that are in process of accession to the European Union. The ECTAA's main tasks are in the field of tourism policy issue, legislation and other actions important for travel agents' or operators' activities. The most important areas that the ECTAA deals with are: consumer protection, air transport policy, competition policy, fiscal policy, Euro introduction, sustainable tourism development and global tourism policy. Furthermore, the areas monitored by the ECTAA are also social policy, education and training policy, environmental policy, maritime, road and railway transport policy, information society, enlargement process of the EU, relations with other institutions in tourism industry and other EU institutions, external EU policy etc. Due the fact that the EU constantly adopts legislations or takes decisions which have, or can have, an impact on tourism industry the ECTAA is, for the EU's institutions, an esteemed consultation partner on any tourism policy related issues. For example, the ECTAA was responsible for creating and implementing the famous EU package travel Directive (90/314/EEC) that came into force in 1993. This directive defines guarantees and obligations of travel agents and tour operators in order to protect customers (in this case, travellers). The latest ECTAA's actions in EU are focused on VAT declarations, EU legislation on working time, part-time jobs in tourism, consumer protection, passenger rights especially in air transport and similar. Altogether, the number of EU legislations and decisions affecting tourism sector is vast and ECTAA experts constantly monitor their influence on tourism sector. A link to the Publications and press releases on their web-address is probably the most interesting for our readers. The ECTAA's reports, speeches, press releases and full text of four codes of conduct in tourism industry are available here. For its members, since 1992, the ECTAA publishes its annual Report on European Union Policies affecting the Tourism Industry. The report lists over 150 regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and proposal for the community legislation, relating to more than fifteen different policy area. Press releases usually features the latest tourism trends, the impact of low cost carriers and give information on the ECTAA's meetings where they discuss the topics of the relevance to the tourism industry. They also organize two meeting per year thus, so far, they have organised a total of 90 meetings. Four codes of conduct available on their web-page are: Code of conduct signed by ECTAA and HOTREC in 1996 (the Confederation of National Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés in EU, that covers hotel contracts and business relations between agents or organisers and hotels within the EU), Passenger service Commitment of Travel Agents, Passenger service Commitment of Tour Operators, Code of conduct for the Protection of Children from sexual exploitation in Travel and Tourism. Enlargement process in the EU, combined with the constantly changing business environment in Europe will, most likely, be reflected in increasing the importance of the ECTAA organisation in the European tourism. Namely, in 44 years ECTAA has contributed to the creation of the high professional standards and it is likely, that the organisation will continue to influence the European tourism and travel legislation.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Ekonomija

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