The EU has rewritten its tourism law in order to label the UK as a “third country,” outside of the EU.
The Council of the European Union published a document on Tuesday describing the revision to EU Regulation number 692/2011 concerning tourism.
The revision is a result of Brexit, and will help to correct EU data gathered on tourism inside and outside the Union (including EU citizens travelling to non-EU countries). It will apply to data concerning “guests staying at tourist accommodation establishments”.
The reclassification will apply to the UK in retrospect, for the whole year of 2020, though Brexit was officially finalised in February 2020.
This way, the update will “not increase the burden on the Member States and respondents”.
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“Given the importance of the United Kingdom as a market for generating tourism in the EU, the Commission would need to continue receiving reporting countries’ data on inbound tourism flows from the United Kingdom separately,” the document reads.
“This is currently the case for major partners such as Russia, United States, Canada, Brazil, China and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries.”
The amendment was executed by the European Commission, which carried out “appropriate consultations” with the Expert Group on Tourism Statistics, the Business Statistics Directors’ Group, and the Expert Group ‘National Statistical Institutes of the European Statistical System’ between February and June of 2020, prior to the adoption of the act.
Amée Zoutberg
The Brussels Times
