A hundred participants on site & online attended in Marseille last 24th April this work session representing the Sustainable Tourism Mission of the Interreg Euro-MED, the Institutional Dialogue Projects and the Thematic Projects of this Mission, other Programmes & Strategies in the Med area, Associated Partners, Tourism Observatories in the MED, Chambers of Commerce, key stakeholders from the Western Mediterranean, and the JS of Interreg Euro-MED.
A meeting and exchange point with the representation of 6 Thematic Projects of the Sustainable Tourism Mission: Herit Adapt, Tourismo, NaTour4CChange, Libeccio, Smitour and Cool Noons -the main lines and activities of this last project were presented in this framework-. On the other side, the event count as well with the active involvement of other Strategies and Programmes key actors of Sustainable Tourism in the Region as: DG Mare and DG Grow of the European Commission, Urban Agenda Partnerships of Tourism and Innovation of the European Commission, Union for the Mediterranean and the Interreg Next Med Programme.
The event was organised by Region Sud (partner of Dialogue4Tourism Project in collaboration with Community4Tourism Project. The welcome was given by Cécile Cadet, Head of the European Cooperation Department of the Mediterranean Cooperation Directorate – Region Provence -Alpes – Côte d’Azur- and Axel Rodríguez-Garrote, Project Officer attached to the Sustainable Tourism Mission, Joint Secretariat of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme.
In this sense, the round table on the Cross-Network Alliance on Sustainable Tourism became a forum for “An open dialogue with Initiatives, Strategies and other Programmes in the MED” moderated by Alexia Spyridonidou (European Law Public Organisation, EPLO, partner of Dialogue4Tourism Project, Interreg Euro-MED Programme) with the participation of: Ramune Genzbigelyte-Venturi DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. Unit GROW G1 – Tourism and Textiles (European Commission); Linos Voskarides Policy Officer in DG Mare, Unit A2: Blue Economy Sectors, Aquaculture and Maritime Spatial Planning (European Commission); Arnaud Terrisse Community4Tourism Project (Interreg Euro-MED Programme); Gianluca Saba (Comune di Genova, Italy) Urban Agenda-Sustainable Tourism Partnership (European Commission); Valentina Schippers (City of Haarlem, Netherland) Coordinator of the Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement (European Commission); Alessandra Sensi Union for the Mediterranean (UfM); Patricia di Biase Interreg Next Med Programme and Snejana Apolostova Deputy Mayor of Varna, Bulgaria. In the same, it was made clear the message of the Sustainable Tourism Mission focused on the promotion of cooperation in the Euro-MED and beyond, to increase the coordination level and institutional capacity of the policy level to make the tourism greener, smarter, and more resilient. After a brief presentation of each strategy and institution, the participants in this round table were asked about the developments within their organisations for supporting sustainable tourism in the MED like further cooperation and potential calls for funding to finish with a discussion on the different proposals for synergies in the near future.
This official work session counted on the final remarks by Curzio Cervelli, Coordinator JS of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme that highlighted the importance of collaborative events and actions to strengthen joint efforts among the Macro-Regional Strategies in the MED and South-Mediterranean area. In this sense, he remarked the relevance of the transnational approach as well “that it is complementary to local aspects”. He focused his speech too on initiatives to find the synergies with the Thematic Projects of Interreg Euro-MED in order to reach concrete solutions for the future of the sustainable tourism.
The Thematic Projects of this Mission will further benefit from the institutional support given by Dialogue4Tourism Project engaging key SHs in the transferring multilevel governance actions.In this sense, the event count with the presentation of the Thematic Project of the Sustainable Tourism Mission of Interreg Euro-MED Programme “Cool noons. Adaptation of the urban tourism offer to face the heating in the Mediterranean” by Giulia David from AVITEM (Agence des Villes et Territoires Méditerranéens Durables, Marseille).
Moreover, the presentations of the roadmaps of key actions for capitalising in the frame of D4T Project took place like the Driving Tourism Transition Panels, the Sustainable Tourism Policy Labs and the Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories by El legado andalusí Andalusian Public Foundation (Regional Government of Tourism, Culture and Sport of Andalusia, Spain) Lead Partner of D4T Project, ASCAME (Association of Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce, Spain), Lazio Region (Italy) and Greening the Islands (Italy). The work session was closed with the wraps up by Ioannis Mardikis (EPLO, partner of Dialogue4Tourism Project) and José Francisco Benítez (Regional Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Associated Partner of Dialogue4Tourism Project).
The previous day was dedicated to the internal SCM of the Dialogue4Tourism Project in which different topics were discussed. The welcome to the SCM was given by Veronique Ceaux, Head of European Cooperation Department of the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation Directorate-Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Axel Rodríguez-Garrote. In this frame, the partner Institute of Agriculture and Tourism of Poreč (Croatia) presented the main lines of the Action Plan for policy-driven Reuse and Transferring and the partner Lazio Region (Italy) spoke about the participation in the MED Clusters of Community4Tourism Project that took place in Rome last 10th and 11th April.
