EUROPEAN COMMISSION GREEN PAPER ON PROPOSED REVISED DIRECTIVE ON MUTUAL
RECOGNITION OF PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS of 22 JUNE 2011
JOINT RESPONSE FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL TOURIST GUIDES
(APTG), THE GUILD OF REGISTERED TOURIST GUIDES (The Guild) AND THE SCOTTISH
TOURIST GUIDES ASSOCIATION (STGA).
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.
APTG, the Guild and STGA are 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. We are
particularly in agreement with the passage from the Green Paper “When issuing such a card, the
competent authority in the Member State of departure would have to check that applicants hold the correct
qualifications and satisfy any other conditions as may be required under a modernised Directive, for
example that they are legally established or that their qualifications are authentic” [Page 3 Para 3].
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 opinion of APTG, the Guild and STGA 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 are 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)
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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 Spain or Germany allowed partial access to guide in, say, the Tower of London,
Manchester City Art Gallery, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Edinburgh Castle or the Giant’s
Causeway but not elsewhere in the UK.
Question 4: Do you support lowering the current threshold of two thirds of the Member
States to one third (i.e nine out of twenty seven) as a condition for the creation of a
common platform ? Do you agree on the need for an Internal Market test to ensure a
common platform does not constitute a barrier for service providers from nonparticipating Member States?
APTG, the Guild and STGA think the procedures for creating common platforms should be
simplified. This, rather than lowering the threshold, would constitute less of a barrier to service
providers.
Question 5: Do you know any regulated professions where EU citizens might
effectively face such situations?
No.
APTG, the Guild and STGA again quote from the Green Paper :
“While Member States are free to define qualifications requirements for access to certain professions as an
appropriate tool to achieve public policy objectives in relation to a given activity, e.g. the need to ensure its
security or its safety, in certain cases the qualifications requirements may be disproportionate or
unnecessary for the achievements of public policy objectives and could lead to barriers to the freedom of
movement of EU citizens.” [Page 7 Para 2.4]
“Indeed there may be cases where an EU citizen is facing an unjustified and disproportionate qualification
requirement in a host Member State at such a level or of such a nature that the individual would not be in a
position to overcome the difficulties through a test or a stage (so called compensation) measures) as fore
seen in the Professional Qualifications Directive nor be in a position to claim partial access according to the
Court jurisprudence……..The citizen would therefore have no other choice but to undergo the entire
necessary training to acquire the domestic qualification in that host Member State,” [Page 7 Para 2.4]
We do not regard the qualification requirement to be disproportionate or unjustified given the area specific
nature of the Tourist Guide qualification.
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?
APTG, the Guild and STGA 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
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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?
APTG, the Guild and STGA strongly disagree 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 area-specific 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 and in Scotland it is STGA. It also follows that, given the qualification is areaspecific, 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.
Tourist guides are ambassadors for and promote their country and/or their area of qualification.
Accordingly, the number of tourist guides who hold qualifications in more than one Member State
is small. 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 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.
APTG, the Guild and STGA (in keeping with all other members of the European Federation of
Tourist Guide Associations) support 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.”
APTG, the Guild and STGA are 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.
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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 APTG, the Guild and STGA 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
APTG, the Guild and STGA are 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.
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 area-specific 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.
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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?
APTG, the Guild and STGA are 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 12: Which of the two options for the introduction of an alert mechanism for
health professionals within the IMI system do you prefer ?
APTG, the Guild and STGA agree with option 1
Question 14: Would you support a three phase approach to modernisation of the
minimum training requirements under the Directive ?
APTG, the Guild and STGA believe that, as regards minimum training periods for tourist guides, the
third phase should be implemented in the longer term with ECTS credits being applied to EN
15565.
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.
APTG, the Guild and STGA do 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 clarity of the CEN definitions in EN13809:2003 is not reflected here. The
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term “travel guide” denotes a book, not a person. We 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. Therefore 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.
Richard Skinner,
International Liaison Committee,
Association of Professional Tourist Guides
128 Theobald’s Road
London WC1X 8TN
Richard Palmer,
Europe representative
The Guild of Registered Tourist Guides
The Guild House,
52d Borough High Street,
London SE1 1 XN, UK
Norma Anne Clarkson,
Chairman
Scottish Tourist Guides Association
Norie’s House
18b Broad Street
Stirling FK8 1EF
Scotland, UK
19th September 2011
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