Full house at NECSTouR and DG Grow Seminar on ESIF opportunities for Tourism!
30/01/2016

Full house at NECSTouR and DG Grow Seminar on ESIF opportunities for Tourism!

    30/01/2016

Friday 29th January 2016, NECSTouR Permanent Secretariat

NECSTouR and the European Commission DG GROW jointly organized the seminar on "Better use of EU funding opportunities for tourism and the visitor economy" in Brussels.

The great success of the event expresses the high interest of the regions when discussing the better opportunities offered by the EU funding opportunities for the benefit of the tourism sector. The event, which received over 130 registrations covering mainly the Regional Delegations in Brussels, was an excellent opportunity to position NECSTouR as one of the tourism networks of reference in the EU arena.

Among the speakers we counted with the enriching participation of the following European Commission Directorate-General: GROW, REGIO, EMPL, AGRI, MARE, and RTD, as well as with the inspiring Regional good practices with regards to the use of EU funds for Tourism: Cornwall, Valencia, Balearic Islands, Tuscany and Crete.

NECSTouR President, Mr. Patrick Torrent – Region of Catalonia, introduced the ongoing work NECSTouR has been developing since 2013 through the TESEO programme. “Although tourism is less visible within the European political agenda, Regions have the strength to make it visible through smartly integrating tourism as a strategy for growth and jobs”.

The President streamlined that the mechanisms for trans-regional cooperation beyond INTERREG and the macro-regional strategies require more detailed analysis, for which it is essential to ensure the follow up of this initiated cooperation between the different DGs and European Regions.

The assistants had the opportunity to interact with European Commission representatives and other Regional Authorities competent in tourism about the place of tourism in their Regional Operational Programmes and about how to maximize the opportunities offered by the EU funding opportunities for tourism. This will further help facilitating trans-regional cooperation for competitive and sustainable tourism projects.