EUROPEAN TOURISM FORUM
Venue: Mellieha, Malta
Organised by the Maltese Government, the European Tourism forum gathered public and private stakeholders from the world, involved in the tourism policy and in the tourism sector for a two-day conference. The presentations of the first day were focused on propositions concerning the main priorities of the Communication of the European Commission. NECSTouR, represented by the Tuscany Region explained the work of NECSTouR concerning the experimentation of sustainable and competitive tourism. In order to fuel the debate, the Tourism Unit provided the participants with a draft implementation plan of the Communication and invited all the stakeholders to contribute to the document by sending their contribution.
Several members of NECSTouR such as Balearic Islands, Midi Pyrenees, ACFCI, ISNART and Legambiente Turismo intervened as speakers during the conference or during the plenary session with direct questions to the panel.
The second day focused on national authorities, who presented their priorities regarding the Communication, followed by an open debate with the participants and a closed inter-ministerial conference. In his introductive speech, Vice-President Antonio Tajani has encouraged all the stakeholders to continue their efforts and to use all European financial instruments available in order to pave the way for a future transversal tourism programme in the EU. In addition, he reminded the importance of measuring the sustainability of European destinations, which work was conducted by EDEN and NECSTouR. Regarding the cooperation with BRIC Countries the EU Commissioner promoted the latest cooperation agreement signed between the China Tourism Academy and NECSTouR (See institutional and international cooperation)
Before the inter-ministerial conference on tourism, the different representatives of European countries explained their priorities in regards to the communication, and the two national ministers of the future presidency of the European Union, Hungary and Poland committed their countries, not only to continue holding tourism as a priority of their programme but also to organise during their mandate, two days each dedicated to tourism policy.
21th to 26th November 2010:
NECSToUR Regional Conference:
TOURISM & LANDSCAPE
NECSTouR regional conference has been held in Gothenburg, organised by the Region Västra Götaland in cooperation with the European network of Local and Regional authorities for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention recep-enelc and NECSTouR. This High level event gathered professionals from the several regional authorities from north to south of Europe, and also territorial stakeholders, managing destinations with the help of the Landscape convention or on the basis of NECSTouR principles
The Objective of linking the responsible for landscape with those for tourism has been achieved through two high moments:
1. The 21st a workshop has been organised by Valais Region in order to develop with the participants some guidelines for local authorities for the management of tourism and landscape
2. The two network RECEP ENELC and NECSTouR decided to sign a cooperation agreement and to develop joint activities in order to integrate tourism in the landscape planning of the regional authorities, and integrate landscape element in the tourism planning
From the 22nd to 25th the interventions showed the benefits for very different organisations (regional and local authorities, national and regional parks, cities, associations, networks...) of implementing the principles of the European Landscape Convention for the tourism, for the local population and for the whole destination. Furthermore from the tourism stakeholders, the presentations showed the potential of the sector to involve all the local public and private actors on the common issue of improving the destination, and that landscape is part of the tourism offer.
The 24th and 25th the participants had the opportunity to go to two destinations implementing the European Landscape Convention and developing sustainable tourism, the municipality of Kungälv and the unique Watercolor Museum in Tjörn. In parallel, a meeting took place in Skara together with participants of the conference in order to have a discussion with the residents and the local stakeholder before signing the European Landscape Convention.
30th November 2010:
Tourism in South East Europe
Venue: Hotel de la Renaissance, Brussels, Belgium
The Parliament Magazine held a conference and exhibition on South East European Tourism where national tourism ministers, tourism authorities, industry representatives and key figures from the EU institutions met to discuss the major issues currently impacting on the industry in South East Europe.The conference, covered four main areas: EU-funding, cross-border cooperation, innovation and sustainable tourism and provided a platform for discussions in a series of themed sessions. The President of the Committee of the Regions opened the conference by insisting on the importance of tourism for regional development, and welcomed the work of NECSTouR as a good practice for regional cooperation. Malcolm Bell from Cornwall presented the example of sustainable tourism management. The event also showcased the tourism activities and destinations from each country, such as Bulgaria, Montegnegro, Slovenia, Serbia, but also focused regional territory such as the Danube region.