EUROPEAN COMMISSION GREEN PAPER ON PROPOSED REVISED DIRECTIVE ON MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS of 22 JUNE 2011 RESPONSE FROM THE INSTITUTE OF TOURIST GUIDING (Institute), THE ACCREDITING BODY IN ENGLAND, WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND FOR QUALIFICATIONS PROGRAMMES ACHIEVING THE STANDARD EN 15565:2008 Tourism Services Requirements for the provision of professional tourist guide training and qualifications programmes Question 1 Do you have any comments on the respective roles of the competent authorities in the Member State of departure and the receiving Member State. The Institute is of the opinion that both home and host member states should check and keep a database of all documents stored in case they are needed again. Question 2 Do you agree that a professional card could have the following effects, depending on the card holder s objectives? a) The card holder moves on a temporary basis (temporary mobility): - Option 1: the card would make any declaration which Member States can currently require under Article 7 of the Directive redundant. - Option 2: the declaration regime is maintained but the card could be presented in place of any accompanying documents b) The card holder seeks automatic recognition of his qualifications: presentation of the card would accelerate the recognition procedure (receiving Member State should take a decision within two weeks instead of three months) c) The card holder seeks recognition of his qualifications which are not subject to automatic recognition (the general system); presentation of the card would accelerate the recognition procedure (receiving Member State would have to take a decision within one month instead of four months. The Institute s opinion is that the effect of the professional card should not be to allow those who act as tour managers or tour escorts to practise a different profession such as that of tourist guide when moving temporarily to or establishing themselves in another member state. In order to achieve transparency for the consumer, it is important the terminology and definitions of EN 13809:2003 is adhered to cf. Response to Question 7. Introducing terms into the tourism market such as tour leader, travel guide, tour guide, local guide, euro guide, docent and so forth is confusing and unhelpful to the consumer. It is clearly not the aim of the Directive to allow individuals who practise one particular profession (tour manager) in one European country, to go to a different EU member country and practice a different profession (tourist guide), according to art. 4 of Directive 2005/36/EC.
Question 3: Do you agree that there would be important advantages to inserting the principle of partial access and specific criteria for its application into the Directive? (Please provide specific reason for any derogation from the principle) In the case of the profession of tourist guide there would be no advantage to inserting the principle of partial access into the Directive. A tourist guide has the area-specific qualification for his/her area of operation as issued and/or recognised by the appropriate authority. It would be impractical and damaging to professional tourist guiding standards to have e.g. a professional tourist guide from France allowed partial access to guide in, say, the Tower of London, Manchester City Art Gallery, the National Botanic Garden of Wales or the Giant s Causeway but not elsewhere in England, Wales and/or Northern Ireland. Question 6: Would you support an obligation for Member States to ensure that information on the competent authorities and the required documents for the recognition of professional qualifications is available through the central on line access point in each Member State? Would you support an obligation to enable online completion of recognition procedures for all professionals? The Institute would support such an approach. With four thousand, seven hundred different professions to cover, e-facilities are the only way currently available to process the administration involved with the shortest delay. Question 7: Do you agree that the requirement of two years professional experience in the case of a professional coming from a non-regulating Member State should be lifted in the case of consumers crossing borders and not choosing a local professional in the host Member State? Should the host Member State still be entitled to require a prior declaration in this case? The Institute strongly disagrees with the lifting of the two years professional experience requirement and wholly agrees that the Member State should still be entitled to require a prior declaration in this case. This is particularly apposite to the tourist guiding profession which has been erroneously cited as a case example. Here the European Commission is again, with respect, failing to distinguish between the separate, but complementary, professions of tourist guide on the one hand and tour manager or tour escort on the other. A Tourist Guide is a person who guides visitors in the language of their choice and interprets the cultural and natural heritage of an area which person normally possesses an areaspecific qualification usually issued and/or recognised by the appropriate authority. In the case of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, this accrediting authority is the Institute of Tourist Guiding. It also follows that, given the qualification is area-specific, tourist guides are not in a highly mobile profession, as has been claimed in recent European Commission publications cf. page 26 of the Internal Marketing Booklet. It would take many years to gain the area qualifications to guide in all Member States. Nearly all tourist guides are ambassadors for and promote the country of their birth/adoption and permanent residence. Accordingly, the numbers of tourist guides who hold qualifications in more than one area are negligible. If tourist guides travel with a group from their area of qualification into an area for which they hold no tourist guiding qualifications regarding the cultural and natural heritage of that area, they are then practising a different profession, that of tour managers or tour Page 2 of 5
escorts and are no longer working as tourist guides. This is not a question of limiting consumer choice, but of providing consumers with an accurate description of the product being sold, i.e. it should be made clear whether a given tour has the services of a tour manager, a tour escort or a tourist guide or a combination of these for either the whole duration or at certain times of the tour. The Institute of Tourist Guiding (in keeping with members of the European Federation of Tourist Guides Associations) complies with the standard for the provision of training for professional tourist guides BS EN 15565:2008 Tourism Services Requirements for the provision of professional tourist guide training and qualifications programmes EN13809:2003 also provides definitions for the following separate but complementary activities: A Tour Manager is a person who manages and supervises the itinerary on behalf of the tour operator, ensuring the programme is carried out as described in the tour operator s literature and sold to the traveller/consumer and who gives local practical information. A Tour Escort is a representative of a tour operator providing basic assistance to travellers. The Institute is unaware of any European standards of training for those working as Tour Managers or Tour Escorts, but assumes that such professions are indeed highly mobile. However, it would not be in the interest of consumers to blur the distinctions between two professions, such as tourist guides and tour managers (the latter recently renamed as tour guides by some sectors of the tourism industry). This is a retrograde step at a time when quality and standards are the two key aims throughout the tourist industry. The EU in general, and the travel industry in particular, should instead focus on clear definitions and distinctions, in order to uphold high standards of professional services for the benefit of consumers. It is clearly not the aim of the Directive to allow individuals who practise one particular profession (tour manager) in one European country, to go to a different EU member country and practice a different profession (tourist guide), according to art. 4 of Directive 2005/36/EC. Accordingly, it seems clear to the Institute that maintaining the status quo is in the interests of the consumer, since it safeguards standards and transparency for both consumers and member states. It is important for the long-term benefits of their respective tourism industries that member states are able to ensure that appropriate care is shown to tourists and that their heritage is properly interpreted. These factors are also important components of the now widely accepted policy of developing sustainable practices in the tourism industry. Question 8: Do you agree that the notion of regulated education and training could encompass all training recognised by a Member State which is relevant to a profession and not only the training which is explicitly geared towards a specific profession The Institute is of the opinion that regulated education and training must always be explicitly geared towards a specific profession in order to achieve consistency of standards in each profession. For professionally qualified tourist guides, these standards are contained in BS EN 15565:2008 Tourism Services Requirements for the provision of professional tourist guide training and qualifications programmes. In the UK there are two accrediting bodies for such professional tourist guide training and qualifications programmes: the Institute of Tourist Guiding in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish Tourist Guides Association in Scotland. Page 3 of 5
Question 9: Would you support the deletion of the classification outlined in Article 11 (including Annex II)? Professionally qualified tourist guides who are members of a tourist guide professional association recognised by the European Federation of Tourist Guides Associations are trained to pre-defined levels of qualifications provided for in EN 15565:2008 Tourism Services Requirements for the provision of professional tourist guide training and qualifications programmes It is not the case that applications for recognition are refused on the grounds of a difference in the level of qualification, simply that the incoming tourist guides lack the area-specific knowledge of the cultural and natural heritage of the host member state, and so are unqualified to practise the profession of tourist guide in the host member state until they have acquired the relevant areaspecific qualifications. Accordingly, as there are no substantial differences in the level of training to identify in order to decide whether compensation measures are necessary, but simply the addition of the area-specific training, the deletion or retention of the classification system would appear to have no relevance to the tourist guiding profession. Question 10: If Article 11 of the Directive is deleted, should the four steps outlined above be implemented in a modernised Directive? If you do not support the implementation of all four steps, would any of them be acceptable to you? Please see response to Question 9. Question 11: Would you support extending the benefits of the Directive to graduates from academic training who wish to complete a period of remunerated supervised practical experience in the profession abroad? The Institute is of the view that this would not be applicable to professional tourist guide trainees and/or graduates due to the area-specific nature of their qualification, as explained above. Question 23: Which of the following options do you prefer? Option 1: Immediate modernisation through replacing the ISIC classification of 1958 by the ISIC classification of 2008? Option 2: Immediate modernisation through replacing Annex IV by the common vocabulary used in the area of public procurement? Option 3: Immediate modernisation through replacing Annex IV by the ISCO nomenclature as last revised by 2008? Option 4: Modernisation in two phases: confirming in a modernised Directive that automatic recognition continues to apply for activities related to crafts, trade and industry activities. The related activities should be established by a delegated act. The list of activities should be based on one of the classifications presented under options 1, 2 or 3. The Institute does not find the International Standard Classification of Occupations offers a clear identification of the professional tourist guide activity. ISCO Section 5113 lists Travel guide. The Page 4 of 5
clarity of the CEN definitions in EN13809:2003 is not reflected here. The term travel guide denotes a book, not a person. The Institute would favour Option 4, provided the delegated act incorporated the terminology in EN13809:2003 Question 24: Do you consider it necessary to make adjustments to the treatment of EU citizens holding third country qualifications under the Directive, for example by reducing the three years rule in Article 3 (3)? Would you welcome such adjustment also for third country nationals, including those falling under the European Neighbourhood Policy, who benefit from an equal treatment clause under relevant European legislation? The European Standard BS EN 15565:2008 is not globally adopted by non-european tourist guide professional associations. The host member state must retain the right to scrutinise the standard of qualifications gained to ascertain if compensatory measures are required; and again the incoming tourist guide would be required to train and acquire the necessary area-specific knowledge in order to qualify to practise in the host member state. Isabel Moore President Institute of Tourist Guiding Coppergate House 16 Brune Street London E1 7NJ 8 th August 2011 Page 5 of 5