The FACILITATE project was officially launched on 1 November 2025 bringing together a strong European consortium of organisations committed to helping destinations and tourism SMEs strengthen their digital capabilities and embrace data-driven decision-making that supports more sustainable and resilient tourism development across Europe. The project is funded under the European Union’s PPPA-2024-SKILL-FOR-TOURISM call and will run for twenty-four months.
FACILITATE aims to turn the substantial progress made through flagship EU initiatives such as D3HUB and DEPLOYTOUR into clear, accessible and practical support for DMOs and tourism SMEs who are navigating an increasingly complex data landscape while facing urgent sustainability demands. By developing understandable guidelines, tailored capacity building activities and a long-term cooperation framework, the project seeks to reduce the digital divide in tourism, empower actors to make better use of available tools and datasets and ultimately help destinations take more informed and future proof decisions.
The project consortium, coordinated by AnySolution, brings together DIH Tourism 4.0 from the Czech Republic, the communication agency Scholz and Friends from Berlin, NECSTouR, Turismo y Deporte de Andalucía, Breda University of Applied Sciences and associated partners Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação and Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Together, they represent an extensive network of tourism and data specialists, innovation hubs and policy organisations at regional, national and European level. Their shared experience in tourism data spaces, competence centres and upskilling programmes provides the project with a solid base of knowledge and direct access to ongoing EU initiatives.
The first major project milestone took place in December 2025, when the consortium met in Malaga on 16–17 December for its official kick off meeting, hosted by the regional partner Turismo y Deporte de Andalucía. The meeting set the operational direction for the two-year programme, including agreement on the community-building approach, initiating guideline development and preparations for the capacity-building activities that will take place across Europe in different geographical areas.
During the first project phase the partners will work closely with DMOs, SMEs, experts and EU tourism networks to gather insights, understand needs and align the project guidelines with the existing EU tools and frameworks. By month six the project expects to publish the first version of the online guidelines that will be available on the EU Tourism Platform. A final updated version will follow in September 2027.
In parallel, a broad training programme will be rolled out across Europe, including webinars, multilingual online courses, peer to peer sessions, video tutorials and a hackathon where tourism professionals can explore new digital solutions and scenario-based thinking. This programme will offer at least twenty training opportunities and reach DMOs and SMEs in at least twenty EU member states.
FACILITATE is also building a dynamic community linking tourism networks, public authorities, SMEs, experts and EU initiatives to support long term collaboration, help destinations learn from each other and encourage partnerships that strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of European tourism. NECSTouR is responsible for the work package bringing together the community.
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