Meet our customer: On top of policy monitoring with the European Tourism Association (ETOA)
The European Tourism Association (ETOA) is an international association of travel and tourism businesses conducting business in Europe. Founded in 1989, ETOA is now based in Brussels, with a commercial and operational hub in the UK. The membership consists of a wide range of tourism-related businesses and services, including tour operators, European destination management companies, accommodation providers, visitor attractions, transport operators and national/local tourism boards.
In this blog, Simon Smith, Policy Manager at ETOA, shares his experiences of using Polpo and how Polpo’s Dutch Local and EU monitoring dashboards support ETOA’s policy and advocacy strategies.
Shaping focus through policy insights
ETOA informs and represents our members on a range of tourism policies, particularly on topics impacting tour operations and city/cultural tourism. Decisions made at an EU, national and municipal level can all affect how tourism operates and we engage with officials in the EU institutions/agencies, national and municipal governments on the impact of regulatory changes.
We also work with and support other industry associations on common topics of interest through alliances such as the Tourism Manifesto[1] at an EU level and the Tourism Alliance[2] in the UK.
Staying ahead of policy developments with Polpo
The value of Polpo is its ability to consolidate a wide range of official sources into one easy-to-navigate platform, tailor the search terms and decide when the information is received (e.g. immediate or daily email alerts). This allows us to follow political discussions as they evolve and respond accordingly, rather than wait for a monthly Newsletter for example.
Due to the breath of regulatory changes affecting travel and tourism, Polpo has become a very useful and essential political monitoring tool, offering a clear and timely view of both EU and Dutch local policy developments with dedicated dashboards for each centralising the relevant information.
On the EU dashboard, these include European Commission/Council/Parliament documents such as proposals, public consultations and press releases as well as from EU agencies, for example FRONTEX. Current topics of interest include Schengen digitalisation (visa process and external border management e.g. introduction of EES and ETIAS) and revisions to the Package Travel Directive.
On the Dutch local dashboard, we can choose from which ‘Gemeente’ (municipal government) to receive official documents from covering new regulations and reports. For example, the city of Amsterdam, as one of the top tourism destinations in Europe, is monitored closely and the measures being taken as part of their ‘Tourism in Balance’ policy.
Thanks to Polpo, we are directly informed about new updates, saving time and giving us a real-time understanding of decisions being made, complementing and strengthening our advocacy work.
More than a platform: personalised support by the Polpo team
Polpo also stands out for its highly supportive onboarding and training experience. The team at Polpo have been quick to respond to requests for assistance and help tailor search terms to best use the platform. Polpo is the first political monitoring tool I have used and has proven to be a very useful, reliable and accurate resource.