The Council of the European Union published a document on August 25th where it describes the revision to EU Regulation number 692/2011. This regulation concerns tourism in the European Union, and the decision to rewrite the tourism law was made in order to label the UK as a “third country,” or outside of the EU.
The revision was required in light of the processes linked to Brexit. The revision aims to correct data gathered on tourism inside and outside the European Union (including EU citizens traveling to non-EU countries). It applies to data concerning guests staying at “tourist accommodation establishments”.
The reclassification will apply to the UK for the whole of 2020 even if Brexit was officially finalized only in February of this year.
“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.
That is in fact the case for major partners such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Russia, among others.
The amendment was executed by the European Commission, with the help from Expert Group on Tourism Statistics, the Business Statistics Directors’ Group, and the Expert Group’s National Statistical Institutes of the European Statistical System.
