Tourism Code Breaks New Ground
December 2, 2000 ·
In October this year the tourism industry and European ECPAT groups met to- discuss establishing a code of conduct on the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in tourism. This expert meeting was the culmination of a year’s project to set up an international code with the tourism industry. The expert meeting included participants from tourism umbrella organisations, European tour operators, monitoring groups and European ECPAT Groups. Agreement was reached on the outline of a future code consisting of: establishing a policy on CSEC in tourism; training tour operator staff; establishing contracts with hotels to stamp out CSEC in their premises; informing travellers (through flyers/ inflight videos etc.) and informing key personnel in destination.
A joint working group has also been established to concretise the monitoring and evaluation (i.e. certification) system for a code and to examine the necessary finances.
