Some policy announcements pass quietly. This one deserves the tourism sector's full attention.
On 23 June, the European Commission published a new Recommendation on business transfers, updating guidance that has stood since 1994. Its starting point is a demographic reality that will define the next decade of European enterprise: a growing number of small business owners across the EU are approaching retirement without a designated successor. The Commission estimates this has the potential to impact millions of companies over the next ten years.
The warning that follows is blunt. Where a transfer fails, jobs, know how and economic value may be lost. And in the absence of European buyers, strategic European businesses may increasingly be acquired by foreign competitors and investors. What was once treated as a private family matter is now recognised as a structural risk to the European economy.
The new guidance sets out a coordinated response and asks Member States to act on several fronts:
Awareness raising, so that owners begin planning transfers early rather than when retirement is already at the door.
Legal and tax measures, reducing the administrative barriers that complicate transfers, including across borders, so businesses can make full use of the opportunities of the Single Market.
Digital matchmaking platforms, connecting owners who want to sell with potential buyers who want to build on what exists rather than start from zero.
Financing and training programmes, broadening the pool of potential successors and entrepreneurs, with particular attention to women and other groups underrepresented in entrepreneurship.
Few sectors feel this challenge more directly than tourism. The industry is built on small and family run businesses, and research at European level shows that succession is often not prepared in time, with some family businesses closing when ownership changes. In tourism the loss goes beyond the balance sheet. When a family run hotel, restaurant or tour operator disappears, a destination loses local knowledge built over decades and part of the character that draws visitors in the first place.
The Recommendation makes succession a formal European policy priority. For tourism regions whose economies rest on generational businesses, that recognition is overdue and welcome.
Here is the encouraging part. Two of the Recommendation's central asks, awareness raising and training, are precisely what NextGEN Tourism exists to deliver.
Our Succession Readiness Competence Framework defines the knowledge, skills and behaviours an effective handover in tourism requires, from financial and legal planning to communication between generations. The Modular Training Package turns that framework into practical lessons, scenarios and templates for VET providers, advisors and businesses. The Digital Succession Readiness Assessment Tool gives owners an honest picture of where they stand and what to do next. And the Knowledge Hub keeps everything openly available, for this project and beyond it.
The EU has set the direction. NextGEN Tourism is already building the tools to follow it, and we would encourage every tourism business owner, educator and advisor to be part of that journey.
Read the Commission's announcement in full on the European Commission website, and explore the NextGEN Tourism resources on our Knowledge Hub.
Source: European Commission, New Commission guidance will make it easier to transfer ownership of SMEs, 23 June 2026.