News / The public tender has begun to start up the Europe Senior Tourism pilot program
The public tender has begun to start up the Europe Senior Tourism pilot program
The public tender has begun to start up the Europe Senior Tourism pilot program
Madrid, 27.02.2009
The process for public contracting in search of a company to organize, manage, commercialize and execute the trips in the Europe Senior Tourism pilot program has begun, and those companies interested may submit their bids until next April 15th at Segittur (Spain’s State-run Company for the Management of Innovation and Tourism Technologies). All of the documents required are available at the website of the State-run Tourism Company (www.segittur.es), which is managing the start-up of this initiative at the request of Spain’s State Secretariat of Tourism.
This is the first step in starting up the Europe Senior Tourism pilot project, after a process of reaching agreements with industry agents and the autonomous regional governments. The program consists of the creation of a group travel system aimed at European Union citizens over the age of 55 years, partially paid by the destination countries. In this first edition, Spain will start up the project and seek the participation of other Member States by signing cooperation agreements so that Spanish citizens can also travel to other EU countries.
Europe Senior Tourism is an attempt to reinvigorate economic activity during the low season by fighting against the serious problem of seasonality in tourism, thereby promoting the maintenance and creation of jobs. Moreover, thanks to its clear European calling, it constitutes yet another part of the effort to promote the concept of European citizenship.
During the first year, the selected destinations are the Balearic Islands and the Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz, in Andalusia, where approximately 80,000 spaces will be available.
This initiative forms part of what is now known as social tourism, and in this sense, it is coordinated with the cooperation of the Preparation Action Plan implemented by the European Commission known as Calypso, to promote the creation of European social tourism initiatives, as well as the International Social Tourism Bureau (ISTB), an international organization that brings together entities related with social tourism.
