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The ITF Tourism Services Section is mainly made up of unions representing workers in travel bureaux and other aspects of the leisure travel industry. It is the smallest in terms of the number of affiliates but fastest growing section of the ITF and on most issues works jointly with other trade union internationals (IUF and FIET) which also represent workers in the tourism industry.

At a European level this co-operation has led to the setting up of the European Tourism Trade Union Co-ordinating Committee, which provides a joint trade union response to developments in the tourist industry in Europe.

Issues concerning the ITF's tourism affiliates include tourism training, qualifications and licensing. The section's policy focuses on quality tourism, linking consumer and worker protection, improving training and qualifications for tourism workers, and emphasising the importance of health and safety aspects.

Organising in tourism, developing socially and environmentally beneficial tourism, and paying special attention to the needs of women, are vital, as is the development of policies to deal with multinational companies.

The nature of work in travel bureaux is changing dramatically due to the impact of electronic work such as electronic ticketing and computer based direct booking systems for airline reservations etc. This is leading to job losses and the ITF is urging that governments, companies and trade unions should be involved in devising joint strategies to cope with such changes.

The section has carried out a limited survey of working conditions and distributed a short list of union nominees in different countries willing to assist tourism workers employed abroad.

Future work programme

The future work of the section will focus on the situation of women workers and the impact of technological change and outsourcing, particularly for travel agencies and reservations centres.

The tourism services section committee

Once every four years the section elects a committee which acts as a steering committee for the section between section conferences. The current section committee was elected during the section conference at the 41st ITF Congress held in Durban on 6 August 2006:

Chair: Hideaki Miyasaka (Japan)

Vice-chair: Bengt Olsson (Sweden)

Women's Liaison Representative: Katri Höök (Finland)

Section Committee:
Ma Chau (Taiwan)
Brigitta Paas (Netherlands)