New Water Safety Guidelines for Service Providers Aim to Enhance Child Safety

During the summer holidays 70% of Europeans will be spending their summer holidays by the waterside and 25% of those will be travelling with children under 18 years of age. Unfortunately, most families are unaware that adults and children have an increased risk of drowning or being injured on holiday. This situation is exacerbated by little consistency in safety practices both between and within countries.


For example, nearly half of water related injuries to children in the EU can be attributed to a safety of service issue. In Britain more children drown in swimming pools while on holiday abroad than at home. In Portugal’s coastal region 72% of children admitted to hospital as a result of submersion are foreigners. Within the EU each year there are approximately 50,000 injuries related to water sports and boating and more than 200,000 swimming pool injuries.


To improve this situation, Alliance, a programme of EuroSafe has launched Protecting children and youth in water recreation: safety guidelines for service providers in cooperation with EU Consumer Commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, and Chair of the Internal Market and Consumers Protection Committee, Arlene McCarthy. The guidelines offer service providers information, advice and measures to improve the safety levels of water activities in order to minimise accidents and improve responses to injury. When implemented these guidelines should protect holidaymakers without taking the fun out of water based activities, and improve the profile of European tourism.




The complete guidelines document can be downloaded at www.childsafetyeurope.org