The economic importance of tourism industry and the impact COVID-19 had on it, have led the EC to conduct extensive analysis and to develop ad hoc programmatic documents as the Transition Pathway for Tourism and the SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe.
From such analysis it emerged that although representing a very important share of EU’s GDP (close to the 10%) there are several threats and shortcomings potentially hindering its overall socio-economic positive impact, which can be traced back to 2 main themes: need for digitalisation and sustainability.
SMEs are generally characterized by a low degree of digitalisation, suffering from the lack of skills, finance, infrastructure as well as mentoring and policy support. Not tapping into the opportunities offered by digitalisation in a highly competing sector is of course a huge waste of growth margin.
#fuTOURiSME logo and EU projects logo
Within this framework, eight European partners from Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Germany, France and Spain have joined to design and implement the COSME project #fuTOURiSME - “Fostering digital & sustainable transition of TOURism SMEs for FUture innovation and resilience” (id no. 101121578), whose in-person kick-off was happily celebrated in Salerno last week (January 10th and 11th, 2024). This European project aims at supporting SMEs in the sector of experiential tourism, overcome the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic and emerge from the new socio-economic environment, through new business models, innovative services, skills & utilisation of twin transition (digital and sustainable) solutions.
#fuTOURiSME partners' - Salerno Kick-off Meeting attendees
fuTOURiSME project has been conceptualized to achieve the following general objectives:
Fostering and promoting digital solutions for (experiential) tourism SMEs, and providing them with new sustainable business models & innovative services to meet with changing tourism demands.
Providing tourism SMEs with skills to effectively take advantage of the opportunities provided by twin transition, via ad hoc training resources and support by experts
Analysing and collecting twin transition best practices and strategies as guidance & source of inspiration for tourism SMEs.
Tackling the relevant topics of the Transition Pathway for Tourism.
At core of fuTOURiSME project there are four different activities:
Compendium of lessons learnt & best practices on environmental, economic and social sustainability, including SMEs digital and sustainable needs.
e-Platform development, training & coaching implementation.
Launch of an Open Call & financial support to tourism SMEs.
Self-assessment tool & creation of a sustainability certification pathway.
In order to guarantee the successful performance of these activities, activities related to project management, peer learning, dissemination, communication and project continuity will be held.
The diversity, internationality, transdisciplinarity and complementarity of partnership is also an asset for the project success, as the kick-off in Salerno showed. Who is beyond this COSME project?
Five Business Support Organizations:
KiNNO INNOVATION INTERMEDIARIES, a Greek Company, focusing on Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and acting as an intermediary to enhance technology integration & innovation capacity, technology transfer & market uptake of research results.
JO Consulting, an Italian consulting company with expertise in EU projects and structural funds, active in Italy and Europe, specialised since 1998 in consulting in business plan.
Confartigianato Salerno is is an Italian association that represents the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises and provides services for the competitive growth of member companies.
Booster Labs, a French company aimed to support DeepTech startups at critical growth stages throughout their scale up journey.
CARDET a Cypriot educational technology, innovation and research centre with vast experience in EU funded projects.
Societa Consortile Rocca Di Cerere, an Italian Destination Management Organization in Sustainable Tourism Managment. The Company was set up as L.A.G. (Local Action Group), and it is the responsible authority for the Rocca di Cerere UNESCO Global Geopark.
KOAN Consulting, a Spanish tourism marketing, dissemination & certificating consulting company with a lot of experience in local, national, European and international projects.
MASCONTOUR GMBH, a German consulting company for resilient and sustainable tourism management specialized in Capacity Development.
Visit this website regularly to stay tuned and join us to shape a digital and sustainable future for tourism SMEs!
Kommentare