Europe is the number one tourism destination in the world for international travellers. These tourists expect maximum safety and security of their accommodations. Euralarm is proposing an EU Directive on fire safety and security for all tourism accommodations. They believe that this is the only way to guarantee a unified level of safety across Europe for all types of accommodation.
To ensure safety in tourism accommodations is regulated more consistently, more effectively, and is properly enforced horizontal legislations at European level are necessary. These legislations should not only establish minimum requirements for safety and security, but should also standardise the definition of the accommodations. These are currently inconsistent which makes synchronisation of standards extremely difficult and hard to implement.
In addition to fire risks, the regulations should also address CO-related risks. This invisible and odourless gas cannot be detected by guests and is a deadly poison at very low concentrations. The same alarms which should be used for fire can also be used for Carbon Monoxide and that is why this should be incorporated in the EU Directive. It should also give special attention focused on the elderly, children, and the physically impaired. They are a large part of the population and require specific alarms. Intelligent evacuation systems using both visual and voice alarm could save lives of the most vulnerable people.
To assess the current level of safety of tourism accommodations across Europe, sufficient and harmonised measurement tools and statistics are required. This factual information is lacking and in the countries where data exists, the sources are not harmonised and cannot be aggregated. These statistical requirements and measure should also be integrated into the EU Directive according to Euralarm.
Euralarm’s position is clearly in favour of an EU-wide binding instrument. Not adopting strong measures would constitute a missed opportunity to put an end to what in many cases are preventable deaths and injuries.
