EU support for public projects in the tourism sector

Abstract

Tourism is a significant economic sector in the EU. It accounts for an estimated 10 % of EU GDP and 12 % of the EU's total labour force.

The EU's tourism policy aims to maintain Europe's standing as a leading tourist destination, while maximising the industry's contribution to growth and employment and promoting cooperation between EU countries, particularly through the exchange of good practices.

The EU also provides financial support to tourism across national and regional operational programmes, mainly from the European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund, which allocated €6.4 billion to tourism projects in 2007-2013 and €4 billion in 2014-2020.

We are conducting an audit to examine whether EU funding for public investments in tourism is effective and the Commission provides suitable support to ensure this. We will look at the work done by the Commission and in four Member States (Hungary, Poland, Spain and Romania), where we will examine the targeting of funding and a number of public projects from selected 2014-2020 operational programmes. In addition, we intend to assess a number of public projects from the 2007-2013 programming period to analyse their operational sustainability.