60 YEARS OF JOINT ACTION1948 -2008EUROPEAN TRAVEL COMMISSION

ETC PRESIDENTS SINCE 1948

1948 - 49 Henri Ingrand, France

1949 - 64 Arthur Haulot, Belgium

1965 - 70 Timothy J O’Driscoll, Ireland

1970 - 71 Werner Kaempfen, Switzerland

1971 - 73 Sven Acker, Denmark

1973 - 74 Jean-Pierre Dannaud, France

1975 - 76 Bengt Pihlström, Finland

1977 - 78 Joop N Strikkers, Netherlands

1978 - 79 Georges Hausemer, Luxembourg

1980 - 81 Günther Spazier, Germany

1981 George Daskalakis, Greece

1981 - 82 André Verheyden, Belgium

1982 - 84 Bertil Harrysson, Sweden

1984 - 86 Leonard Lickorish, United Kingdom

1986 - 88 Walter Leu, Switzerland

1988 - 89 Antonios Andronicou, Cyprus

1990 - 92 Klaus Lukas, Austria

1993 - 95 Urbain Claeys, Belgium

1996 - 2000 Hans Jakob Kruse, Germany

2000 - 01 Theo J J Schmitz, Netherlands

2001 - 04 Germán Porras, Spain

2004 - Arthur Oberascher, Austria

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BRINGING EUROPE TOGETHER:60 YEARS OF JOINT ACTION 1948-2008

It was immediately after World War I that Europeangovernments began to realise tourism’s importance asan economic sector. By the early 1920s, many of themhad established NTOs for their countries and this led in1925 to the creation of a new umbrella body, theInternational Union of Official Tourist PublicityOrganisations. As early as 1927/8, this new bodylaunched a new campaign to promote Europe totravellers in the United States under the slogan ‘Europe Calling’.

Political developments in the 1930s and the subsequentoutbreak of World War II prevented any furtherinitiatives, but the organisation met again in Paris in1947 and re-organised itself into the International Unionof Official Travel Organisations (IUOTO). Meeting in Oslothe following year, the IUOTO decided to divide itself intoa number of “regional commissions” representingdifferent parts of the world. The first of these was thecommission for Europe.

Thus the European Travel Commission was born. It held its first meeting in Stalheim in Norway on 18th June 1948.

The IUOTO became the World Tourism Organization in1975 which, in turn, has become an official agency ofthe United Nations and is now known as the UNWTO. To this day, ETC remains an affiliate member.

THE FOUNDING MEMBERSThe founding nineteen members of ETC were all fromwestern Europe:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece,Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco,Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,Switzerland, Turkey and the UK.

Their number rose to twenty-three when they were laterjoined by Cyprus, Germany, Malta and Yugoslavia.

Eastern European countries declined the invitation tojoin ETC, despite all being members of the IUOTO. It wasonly after the fall of the Iron Curtain that thesecountries became members of ETC - the first one beingHungary in 1990.

IN THE BEGINNING

In 1948, before anyone had heard of the European Economic Community or the European Union, nineteen of

Europe’s national tourism organisations (NTOs) joined forces to form the European Travel Commission (ETC).

Their aim? To work together to promote the importance of tourism in revitalising Europe’s economy after the

devastation of World War II.

With early help from the US-sponsored Marshall Plan, ETC played a vital role in the regeneration of

Europe’s tourism industry after the war. Sixty years later in 2008, it is still going strong and has seen its

membership grow to 39 members. The priority these days remains promoting tourism to Europe from

non-European markets.

This publication looks back at 60 years of achievement for European tourism.

ETC’s first two presidents, Henri Ingrand (France, 1948-49)

and Arthur Haulot (Belgium, 1949-64)

THE MARSHALL PLANETC was created against the backdrop of the US-fundedMarshall Plan, which was operational from 1947 to 1952and supported the reconstruction of the Europeaneconomy after the war.

One of the service sectors supported by the plan wastourism. ETC’s founding fathers were convinced thattourism from the United States would make a significantcontribution to the rebuilding of Europe’s economy.Opening up the many attractions of Europe to UScitizens would help to offer something in return forAmerica’s investment in other parts of the economy.

There was much to do. With the overall priority ofmaking governments aware of the importance oftourism to their national economies, ETC’s action planincluded the following practical objectives in workingwith government agencies and industry bodies:

“establishing the recognition of tourism on the basis

of its ability to make a positive contribution to the

balance of payments;

cataloguing the needs of the tourist plant in each

country and the capital investment required;

planning systematically measures to be taken on a

national and international basis to ensure policies

that would help to develop the tourist trade;

carrying out common research on the appropriate

means of developing freedom of travel and ensuring

maximum use of the tourist plant;

seeking to develop means of transport to bring

visitors from North America to member countries”.

FURTHER EUROPEAN

RECOGNITION OF TOURISM’S

IMPORTANCE - THE OEEC Shortly after the founding of ETC in 1948, the inter-governmental Organisation for EuropeanEconomic Co-operation (OEEC) created its own tourismcommittee. An exclusively European affair, thiscommittee proved a valuable asset to ETC: it provided aforum for the NTOs to make the case for tourismsupport directly to national governments.

Through the OEEC’s Tourism Committee, ETC’s memberNTOs worked successfully to eliminate visas and otherobstacles which were inhibiting both intra-European traveland travel from other countries. Travel from NorthAmerica to Western Europe became virtually free ofbarriers, as did - in anticipation of the EU’s Schengen area- travel within the area covered by ETC’s then members.

ETC also secured the inclusion of its marketingcampaigns in the OEEC’s tourism programme. This didnot bring with it OEEC funding for these campaigns, butobtaining the Tourism Committee’s approval for themensured that European governments provided thenecessary financial support through their NTOs.

When the OEEC became the Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development (OECD) in 1962 andmembership was extended to non-European countriessuch as the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia andNew Zealand, it was clear that the objectives of theTourism Committee would no longer be purely European.Consequently ETC became a fully independentorganisation, funding its activities through membershipsubscriptions and partnership funding in the marketplace.

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ETC members in the United States gather outside the White House for a meeting with President Eisenhower in 1954

MARKETING EUROPE IN THE

UNITED STATES As early as November 1948, ETC set up a committee inEurope to put together a programme of joint Europeanpublicity in the US that would be funded by contributionsfrom its members.

In the days before mass air travel, transport capacityacross the Atlantic was provided almost entirely byshipping lines. With capacity in short supply during thepeak season, ETC’s first campaign was designed topromote off-season travel from September to the end ofApril. It was approved by ETC’s committee in Europe inNovember 1948 and then implemented during thesecond half of 1949 by a committee of NTOrepresentatives based in New York.

So began the US Operations Group. In its early years,the group worked closely with the American authorities in encouraging the development oftrans-Atlantic tourism. Members of the then 21-stronggroup were invited to the White House to meetPresident Eisenhower in 1954 and presented him with ascroll welcoming his “invaluable support to the cause ofinternational travel”. In 1960, the group was representedat a ceremony in the White House when PresidentKennedy signed legislation establishing the UnitedStates Travel Service.

In 1968, when the United States was considering theintroduction of a tax on travel abroad, ETC issued athirteen-point Declaration on Freedom to Travel whichalmost certainly influenced the decision of PresidentJohnson’s administration to abandon its proposal.Freedom to travel has long been a point of principle for ETC. Already in 1963, ETC had declared to the firstUN International Conference on Tourism that,

“tourism should be considered by governments as animportant and integral part of world trade and thatmeasures taken to develop the exchange ofmerchandise and commodities by increasing thefreedom to trade should be applied to tourism”.

Over the years, however, it has been marketingprogrammes that have predominated as ETC works toencourage the American consumer to visit Europe. Co-ordinated by its members in the United States with thesupport of local marketing consultants, the organisation’scampaigns have employed a wide range of communicationtools including advertising, public relations, pressreleases, print production, editorial publicity, films andvideos, workshops / trade shows, trade publications and,more recently, the creation of the first (US-only) version of the website that has been developed into theinternationally recognised visiteurope.com.

In all of these activities, the US Operations Group hasworked closely with the airlines, hotels, tour operators,car hire companies and many other suppliers of theEuropean travel ‘product’. And in this market, as in theothers in which it has a presence, ETC punches aboveits weight, using its relatively small budget as seedmoney to lever considerable support and contributionsfrom its partners. That it continues to do so today at atime of increasingly limited resources speaks volumesfor the esteem in which ETC’s work is held by itspartners in the United States.

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Consumer promotions by the US Operations Group in 1998

MARKETING DESTINATION EUROPE

Sixty years on, ETC is known above all as a marketing organisation, promoting Europe worldwide through its

internet portal, visiteurope.com, and through its Operations Groups comprising NTO directors in the main

long-haul markets - the United States, Canada, Latin America and Japan. It also runs a highly respected

programme of market intelligence.

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MARKETING EUROPE IN CANADA,

LATIN AMERICA AND JAPAN America may have been first, but ETC maintains threeother groups in Canada, Latin America and Japan too.The principles are the same: the groups bring togetherNTOs’ directors and managers in the markets, theydevise their own programmes of activities in agreementwith the Board of Directors and General Meeting, andtop up their budget allocations with contributions raisedfrom trade partners.

The Japan Operations Group dates from 1974 when itlaunched its first joint promotional effort. This coincidedwith the relaxation by the Japanese government ofrestrictions on travel abroad by its citizens, and was oneof the factors behind a substantial increase in outboundtravel from Japan.

The Latin America Operations Group dates from 1977.Operations were originally aimed mainly at the twolargest markets on the continent, Brazil and Argentina,and campaigns have also been run in smaller marketssuch as Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile. Currently, activityis focussed on the rapidly growing Brazilian market,which accounts for by far the biggest part of the LatinAmerican market for tourism to Europe.

The Canada Operations Group was formed in January1988. While there had been some joint promotional activityfrom 1978 onwards and market research had been carriedout together with Canada’s two largest airlines, this workhad been steered from New York where most NTOs’Canadian operations were based at the time.

An Australia Operations Group also existed for manyyears, but was disbanded at the end of the 1990s forbudgetary reasons.

MARKETING EUROPE ONLINEAs early as the mid 1990s, the US Operations Group hadrun a simple consumer website for the US market atwww.visiteurope.com, incorporating it into many of theiractivities and campaigns. In 2006, the whole of ETCadopted this web address for a brand new internetportal designed to promote Europe worldwide.

In 2003, the European Commission (EC) had launched aproject to develop a pan-European tourism portal withfunding from its Interchange of Data betweenAdministrations (IDA) programme. The EC invited ETCand its members to act as project advisers and tooperate the newly created site on its behalf. The newweb portal was launched at a meeting of the EU’stourism ministers in Vienna in March 2006.

This website is now at the heart of all ETC’s operationsin the marketplace, making it possible for ‘DestinationEurope’ to reach new markets and providing all ETCmembers with cost-effective access to markets thatwould previously have been out of their reach. There arecurrently eight different market versions of the site: US, Canada (in English and French), Latin America (Spanish), Brazil (Portuguese), China (Chinese), Japan (Japanese) and a global English version.

All versions of the site offer both information on Europeas a whole as well as easy access to the nationalwebsites run by ETC’s member NTOs.

Brochure distributed by the

Canada Operations Group in 2004

Cover of a Europe travel guide published by the Japan

Operations Group in 1987

Selling Europe in Brazil, 2007

MARKET INTELLIGENCE

AND RESEARCH One thing that does not change with the move intoonline marketing is the need - by NTOs and theEuropean tourism industry alike - for marketintelligence and research. This has been a priority for ETC since its earliest days when its paper European recovery and the travel industry set out theneed for joint action by European countries to helprestore and promote their tourism business. For thepast sixty years, ETC has run a continuous and highlyregarded programme of tourism research to help shapeits own promotional activities, as well as those of itsmember NTOs and the wider tourism industry.

These days ETC’s programme of market intelligence is decided upon by ETC’s oldest strategic group - theMarket Intelligence Group (MIG) - whose members arethe NTOs’ research directors. This group - whichcelebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2006 - wasoriginally formed in 1986 when it took over researchresponsibilities from the previously long-establishedResearch Committee. Originally called the ResearchGroup, it renamed itself in 2006. The MIG holds anannual meeting to decide on future research plans and priorities. A smaller Market Intelligence Committee(MIC) steers the day-to-day work of the group. ETC’s Executive Unit provides the secretariat.

The list of market intelligence activities carried out overthe years is long. It includes market studies and profiles,best-practice handbooks on a range of marketingtechniques, tourism trends and statistics, as well as

seminars based on the best-practice handbooks. Over150 documents have been produced to date, includingfrequent updates to ensure that ETC’s and the NTOs’market knowledge is kept up to the minute.

Over the years, this group has developed into a close-knitresearch community whose work has attracted theinterest of external partners, particularly that of theUNWTO, which now co-funds many of the projectsundertaken as part of a formal partnership agreementwith ETC. Other partners include European CitiesMarketing, the European Travel and Tourism Action Group(see below) and the European Tour Operators Association.

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Handbook on Tourism Market Segmentation

(ETC/UNWTO, 2008)

STRATEGIC GROUPS, PARTNERSHIP AND EUROPEANTOURISM POLICY

TOURISM TO EUROPE 1950 - 2006

Source: UNWTO - Tourism Market Trends (2006 edition)

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

International tourist arrivals (million) 16.8 50.4 113.0 178.5 265.6 395.9 441.5

International tourism receipts (US $, billion) 0.9 3.9 11.0 61.6 142.9 232.5 348.3

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MARKETING AND TECHNOLOGYThe Marketing and Technology Network is the latestaddition to ETC’s strategic groups. Since its creation (as the New Media Group) in 1998, it has become amuch valued forum for members on online marketingissues as well as an important adviser to ETC on thedevelopment of visiteurope.com.

The MTN also funds the public New Media Reviewwebsite (www.etcnewmedia.com/review) which keepsNTOs and the tourism industry up to date on the use ofnew technologies by consumers and the travel trade intourism markets around the world. Its annual e-BusinessAcademy is a popular and unique event, being the onlynew-media event created and run solely for NTOs. Itcombines presentations from leading external speakersand workshops on the issues faced by ETC and itsmembers in developing their online marketing activities.

WORKING WITH THE INDUSTRYFrom the beginning, ETC has understood the importanceof maintaining good working relationships with thedifferent sectors of the tourism industry. Close co-operation with trade partners in the marketplace is justone aspect of this. Another is liaison with the industry’srepresentative bodies on issues of common interest.

For many years, this liaison was about ensuring goodtwo-way communication. So, for example, a conferencewas held in New York in 1956 to celebrate five years ofthe co-ordination of promotional programmes by ETCand the United States industry. Another one was held inAmsterdam in 1969 on the implications for tourism ofthe newly developed Boeing 747 jumbo jet. In 1978 and1980, further meetings were held with the industry toconsider a major ETC study on the prospects fortourism to Europe up to 1990.

In 1981, ETC decided to form the European Travel andTourism Action Group (or ETAG, as it came to be known).ETAG continues as a group of European andinternational organisations representing the mainindustry sectors. As the founding member, ETC appointsthe chairman from one of its member NTOs. The firstchairman was Leonard Lickorish, an ETC member ofmany years’ standing.

ETAG works principally with the EU institutions, addingits collective voice to the individual voices of its membersin lobbying on policy developments that affect tourism.Like ETC, it is an affiliate member of the UNWTO.

The launch of ETC’s new internet portal at the European Tourism Ministers’ Conference in Vienna, March 2006

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INFLUENCING EUROPEAN

TOURISM POLICY Whilst remaining primarily a marketing organisation,ETC has also been at the forefront of discussions on thedevelopment of European tourism policy in theEuropean Union, formerly known as the EuropeanEconomic Community (EEC).

Until now, tourism policy has been regarded as essentiallya national responsibility and national governments havehad the power to veto European Commission proposals tofund pan-European tourism programmes.

However, as long ago as 1973, a working grouprepresenting ETC’s EEC members proposed to the thenmember states that there should be a specialist tourismdepartment inside the European Commission. Thisproposal was rejected at the time and ETC followed it upby publishing annual studies on the economicimportance of tourism in the EEC. Finally, in 1985, theTourism Unit was created.

Since then, ETC has worked with the Tourism Unit on arange of initiatives, including a joint promotion in theUnited States and Japan in 1988, further campaigns duringthe European Year of Tourism in 1990 and a lightningcampaign to re-motivate travel to Europe after the GulfWar in 1991. The most recent initiative is the creation ofthe new version of the visiteurope.com portal in 2006.

Excellent bilateral relations with the Europeaninstitutions have been maintained throughout. ETC is amember of the European Commission’s TourismConsultative Committee and has been one of itsadvisers on the planning of the annual EuropeanTourism Forum since the forum was first held in 2002.Since 2007, there has also been ongoing dialoguebetween the ETC President and the EC’s Vice-President(and Commissioner with responsibility for tourism) onfuture co-operation between ETC and the Commission.

Contacts with the European Parliament have also beengood. For many years, ETC has been a member of theParliament’s Tourism Intergroup (an informal group ofMEPs with an interest in tourism). A successfulexhibition was held in the Parliament in 2000 and theETC President was invited to address a public hearingon European tourism policy which was organised by theTransport and Tourism Committee in 2005.

European Commission Vice-President, Günter Verheugen,

and ETC President, Arthur Oberascher, at the

European Tourism Forum in Portugal, October 2007

Former Dutch MEP, P.A.M. Cornelissen, and the

European Commission’s then Tourism Director,

Patrick Hennessy, at ETC’s 50th anniversary conference in 1998

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From the beginning, it has been the enormous effort put in by volunteers from member NTOs that has drivenETC’s achievements. These volunteers are the CEOswho steer the organisation at the twice-yearly General Meetings or the more frequent gatherings ofthe Board of Directors; they are the NTOs’ directors andmanagers in the US, Canada, Latin America and Japan markets; they are the research directors on theMarket Intelligence Group (MIG) and the e-marketingand technology specialists on the Marketing andTechnology Network (MTN). They all give their timefreely and willingly to pursue ETC work in addition totheir ‘day jobs’ in the NTOs.

This considerable volunteer effort allows ETC toconcentrate its limited resources on its campaigns andother activities without the need to pay for largeadministrative overheads at its headquarters or in the markets.

FUNDINGETC is a non-profit-making organisation registered inBelgium, and is totally funded by annual fees paid by itsmembers. It is the membership that decides the level ofthese fees, which are calculated using a formula basedon a basket of economic and tourism-related factors.ETC’s aim is to provide good value for money for itsmembers. The strength of its reputation in internationalmarkets shows its ability to do just that.

The annual budget has remained fairly static over recentyears, given the pressure that exists on the majority ofmember NTOs’ own national budgets.

MANAGEMENT AND

ADMINISTRATIONThe first president of ETC was Henri Ingrand of Francewho held the office from 1948 to 1949. As befits a trulyEuropean organisation, subsequent presidents havebeen appointed from all over Europe. The currentpresident is Arthur Oberascher from Austria.

In the early days, under the presidency of Belgium’sArthur Haulot, ETC was based in Brussels. In 1965, itmoved its secretariat to Dublin under the managementof long-time ETC supporter, Eddie Kearney of

Bord Fáilte (the then tourist board for the IrishRepublic). Timothy O’Driscoll of Bord Fáilte became theorganisation’s first full-time Executive Director in 1971after five years as its president.

The Executive Unit was created in April 1978, providingETC with a permanent staff of two to three people. Ittook on the additional task of providing secretariatservices to ETAG in 1981.

Robert Hollier of France, one of ETC’s founding fathersand one of the men behind the establishment of theInternational Union of Official Travel Organisations in1947, took over as Executive Director in 1987. He movedthe Executive Unit to Paris and offices provided by theFrench government’s Direction de l’Industrie Touristiqueand the Maison de la France (the French GovernmentTourist Office).

Following Mr Hollier’s retirement in 1995 andreplacement by Walter Leu from Switzerland, ETCmoved back to Brussels and the premises of ToerismeVlaanderen (the Tourist Office for Flanders) at theinvitation of its then president Urbain Claeys.

Mr Leu left ETC in 2001 and was replaced by Jaime Axel Ruiz of Spain. Under Mr Ruiz’s leadership,the organisation moved for the first time to its ownindependent premises in central Brussels, where itremains to this day. Rob Franklin of the UK becameExecutive Director in 2004.

HOW ETC IS ORGANISEDDEDICATED VOLUNTEERS

ETC MEMBERS IN 2008European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,

Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,

Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg,

Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,

Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain,

Sweden, United Kingdom.

Plus: Croatia, Georgia, Iceland, Monaco,

Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Serbia,

Switzerland, FYR Macedonia, Turkey

and Ukraine.

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Today, as much as ever, ETC remains at the forefront of European co-operation. The original westernEuropean member countries have now been joined bycountries from all over eastern Europe. Hungary wasthe first to join in 1990, the year after the fall of theBerlin Wall and a year before the Soviet Union wasdissolved. These were followed by Bulgaria andSlovenia in 1993, Poland in 1994 and the CzechRepublic in 1995. The most recent member is FYR Macedonia, who joined in 2007. ETC currently has thirty-nine members - the most it has ever had,and twelve more than the European Union.

This growth in membership is clear evidence, if any wereneeded, of the continuing importance of ETC in helpingEurope to maintain its position as leader in worldtourism. In a rapidly changing and growing marketplaceinfluenced increasingly by the internet and developmentof new technologies, the original reasoning behind thecreation of ETC remains fundamentally valid. It continuesto add a new dimension to its members’ nationalpromotional and research activity, but does so now withthe benefit of sixty years’ experience and expertise. Yet itis the sophistication of its members and the dedicationof the individuals involved that make its work possible.

ETC TODAY

ETC members and staff at the General Meeting in Sofia in October 2007

Disclaimer: Whilst every care has been taken in the compilation of this publication and the information and statements contained in it are believed to be correct at the time of goingto press, the publishers and promoters of this publication are not liable for any inaccuracies.

Edited and co-ordinated by Nick Markson – nickmarkson@markson.eu

Designed by Frontline Communication – info@frontlinecommunication.co.uk

Front cover: ETC and US trade partners meet President Kennedy at the White House in 1960

Inside front cover: Scroll presented by ETC to President Eisenhower in 1954

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