On 14th of November, NECSTouR hosted the impactful webinar “A Guide on Tourism Climate Action Plans” to present and provide insights on the recently published “Blueprint for Tourism Climate Action Plans”, a tool published within the Thematic Community Project of the Interreg Euro-Med Programme Sustainable Tourism Mission. The webinar, led by NECSTouR’s Climate Task Force Chair and Visit Flanders’ Sustainable Manager, Marjan Nauwelaert, aimed at supporting members to understand and be able to use this tool to integrate climate action into their tourism strategies.

Elisa van den Heuvel, from Breda University of Applied Sciences, opened the session providing an in-depth walkthrough of the Blueprint, to empower participants to utilise the tool and maximise its potential when it comes to Climate Action Planning. She highlighted the importance of tools to monitor emissions, establish baselines and prioritise actions to make the process tangible and measurable.

Following this intervention, Mariona Salvatella, representative of the Catalan Tourist Board and Vice-Chair of NECSTouR’s Climate Task Force, provided some insights by sharing Catalonia’s journey of crafting their own Climate Action Plan, detailing the many stakeholders involved in the process, the iterative actions, and the annual mechanisms they had to set up in order to evolve the plan with the ever-changing climate priorities.

The webinar concluded with a dynamic exchange on challenges, motivations, and strategies for crafting Climate Action Plans, as well as some more practical insights to use the Blueprint as a step-by-step guide. This webinar and collaborative environment helped us highlight the urgencies of climate action in tourism and encouraged the members share knowledge across the different regions. Thanks to the speakers and attendees, we continue to develop and deliver our Climate Hub and its priorities by driving sustainable action and shaping the tourism sector.