The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) retains Tarsh to provide ongoing strategic communications consultancy.  The Association’s members are tour operators who bring tourists to Europe and their major suppliers.  Collectively they represent over €6 billion spending on accommodation and travel services annually.

Olympics Report

After London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, there was talk of levying a tax on the UK’s tourism industry, on the assumption that it would be a major beneficiary of the Games.

However, following the Athens Olympics, many ETOA members noticed that the major boost to tourism that had been forecast did not materialise.

In consultation with Tarsh, ETOA undertook a study of inbound tourism to previous Olympic host cities.  It identified a consistent pattern to visitor numbers that showed tourism growth stalling immediately before the Games and up to two years afterwards.

On Tarsh’s recommendation, ETOA extended its research to back up its findings with additional data and it authoritatively referenced all quotes and statistics. 

A briefing for the media on ETOA’s findings was planned for the eve of the first anniversary of London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics.  Dissemination of the news was embargoed to the following (anniversary) day.  In conjunction with the report, ETOA also called for a series of measures, including a promotional campaign, a wider debate and a commitment not to tax tourism. 

The media briefing was supported by a telephone and Email campaign, which resulted in interviews for ETOA’s Executive Director with over 20 leading news organisations.

The findings of ETOA’s report were extensively cited in the anniversary coverage.  The campaign generated dozens of prominent news items in mainstream media, including Associated Press, BBC, Bloomberg, the Evening Standard, the Guardian, the Financial Times, London News Radio, ITV, Newsweek, Reuters, the Scotsman, the Telegraph, the Times and many trade titles. 

July 7th Incidents London

Following the terrorist events in London in July 2005, media speculation about damage to inbound tourism was rife. To prevent this from spiraling out of control, Tarsh Consulting rapidly arranged interviews for ETOA with all the top broadcast media in the UK, including BBC, ITV, CNBC Europe and CNN. During the interviews, reassuring messages were conveyed about London as a destination, supported by data that showed modest levels of cancellation by tourists to Europe.

Other Assignments

Other advice has included media relations to support various initiatives, development of media sponsorship deals for ETOA's annual conference, preparation for interview by parliamentary committee and the creation and implementation of a campaign that successfully blocked proposed changes to EU VAT legislation that could have destroyed 5,000 UK jobs