European Travel Commission

The European Travel Commission (ETC) is the nonprofit marketing organization that promotes Europe as a tourism destination to overseas visitor markets. Its roots go back to 1948 when 19 European countries decided to establish a commission that would make governments aware of the importance of tourism in their national economies and advertise Europe to long-haul markets, at that time primarily to the United States, and later to Canada, Latin America, and Asia.

[Page 449]Its members are European national tourism organizations (NTOs) handling national tourism promotion. In 2015, out of 51 sovereign states in Europe, ETC numbered 33 members, of which 25 were part of the European Union. The members cooperate in areas of sharing best practices, market intelligence, and promotion in order to inspire a lifelong ...