The Croatian Tourism Ministry on Tuesday organised an online meeting of 200 guests from a dozen countries on new sustainable tourism management models in the Mediterranean.
The participants come from Mediterranean countries involved in the Smartmed and Best Med projects, prepared as part of the INTERREG V-B Mediterranean cooperation programme.
They examined the possibilities of achieving synergy between the two projects to create uniform responses to the common challenges of sustainable tourism development, the ministry said in a press release.
Croatia and its Tourism Ministry are the leading partner in Smartmed, which deals with the high seasonality of and lack of cooperation between the key participants in tourism in the Mediterranean by developing and testing a new smart tourism business model, soon to be launched in Croatia.
Best Med tests a model for improving the management of cultural routes in the Mediterranean, the final goal being the creation of a network of tourism observatories to facilitate data exchange and the best practices of the countries involved.
New technologies, statistics and sustainable tourism indicators would be utilised to develop inclusive and resilient destinations whose communities live better and promote their heritage, and where tourists care for the environment together with the locals, the ministry said.
The participants in the meeting said that in the context of the pandemic's impact on tourism, looking for new management models was crucial and that Smartmed saw the current crisis as an opportunity to make tourism in the Mediterranean more resilient and the Mediterranean the leader in tourism viability and transformation as well as destination management.
Minister Nikolina Brnjac said the two projects would impact the creation of the strategy of Croatia's sustainable tourism until 2030.
The many challenges faced by Croatia are also faced by Portugal, Spain, France, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Slovenia and Greece, she said, adding that it was necessary to focus on sustainable, inclusive and resilient tourism and to develop smart solutions.
(Hina)
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