A consortium of 9 partners led by the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region submitted an Interreg Euro-MED proposal for a Project on Sustainable Tourism.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing a new tourist boom, but as the EU Parliament underlines, there is "a shift in the nature of travellers' demands towards safe, clean and more sustainable tourism". In this sense, the EU Parliament "calls for the rapid development of a roadmap for sustainable tourism, including innovative measures to reduce the sector's climate and environmental footprint, developing more sustainable forms of tourism, diversifying the offer, boosting new cooperation initiatives and developing new digital services". The same idea is largely supported by the Interreg Euro-MED Programme 2021/2027, which states that "it is more important than ever to support a permanent and sustainable change in tourism practices".
Based on the common strategic objectives of the EU and the Euro-MED Programme, the ATMOS2SUSTAIN project proposal was born, bringing together 9 main partners from 5 European countries (Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Croatia) and 12 associated partners, who join together to submit a proposal in the framework of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme for the Sustainable Tourism mission aiming to improve the sustainability, resilience, and recovery of the tourism sector.
The Project
The proposal aims to foster sustainable and active tourism and visitor mobility through the establishment of appropriate policies for long-term transformation, talent development, and the adoption of innovative technologies by actors in the quadruple helix of the tourism value chain in areas of relevant natural and cultural value and the creation of new business models to strengthen local economies.
The objective is to respond to some pressing and common challenges for the territories in the consortium, such as the distribution of visitors to reduce the impact of mass tourism, the search for innovative strategies to address the seasonality of tourism, the attraction of new forms of tourism and the re-education of current visitors or the exploration of sustainable and alternative economic development models around the tourism sector.
ATMOS2SUSTAIN proposes to address these issues holistically and collaboratively in support of small municipalities with little experience in technologies and, in some cases, without experience in European projects or without access to transnational networks to learn from others, bringing together in a single project, actions such as the analysis of tourism flows, the development of strategies and action plans, the pilot testing of technological solutions or the development of local talent, which have traditionally been addressed individually.
But this is not all. The project proposal also targets local and regional SMEs with specific training to start exploring and adopting advanced technologies, as well as supporting innovative procurement procedures for the purchase of new technologies adapted to local needs.
Finally, ATMOS2SUSTAIN strongly promotes transnational collaboration: technical partners will lead the creation of solutions, and their implementation will be carried out jointly between Public Sector partners supported by technical partners in their respective territories, thus creating strong links and cooperation mechanisms. By adopting this model, the project will increase the number of organisations cooperating across borders, creating new long-term relationships beyond the project consortium, and supporting joint co-creation, implementation, and replication of solutions.
The Consortium
The consortium signing the proposal is a strong and balanced alliance with sufficient capacity to achieve all the objectives set with solvency and wise application of resources. Each partner has a specific mission but contributes to the overall project achievements in a complementary way. The partners in the project are the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (Slovenia), Vila do Bispo (Portugal), Riese Pio X (Italy), Rota (Spain), Zagreb(Croatia), BABLE Smart Cities Iberia (Spain), IPI Consulting Network (Portugal), ODRAZ (Slovenia) and IST Técnico Lisboa of the University of Lisbon.
The proposal is reinforced by a wide representation of associated partners who will contribute with their knowledge and experience to the project goals: Ljubljana Marshes Nature Park (Slovenia), Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia), Tourism Board of Međimurje County (Croatia), Tourism Board of Lika-Senj County (Croatia), Lika Destination Cluster (Croatia), Smart City Cluster (Spain), IN-MOVE by Railgrup (Spain), Eurecat - Technology Center of Catalonia (Spain), Portuguese Association of Sustainable Tourism (Portugal), Parish Council of Sagres (Portugal), and SESIN SA (France).
