NECSTouR Vice-President - Mr Jan Korthoudt, from Flanders Regions - stated the four recommendations of NECSTouR about the Mediterranean Coastal and Maritime (C&M) Tourism Management Model. This model has been presented during the Capitalisation Conference of MITOMED+ (Models of Integrated Tourism in the MEDiterranean Plus) project last 7th of October in Brussels.

The Management Model aims to improve sustainable and responsible maritime and coastal tourism planning in the Mediterranean area through a series of recommendations, tools and practices.

NECSTouR's recommendations:

• Concrete and useful. As highlighted by Mr Korthoudt, NECSTouR appreciates that the model provides step by step all the support to improve Maritime and Coastal tourism planning and management in the Mediterranean area, including concrete examples based on the experience of the destinations involved in the project and recommends to spread the voice and to promote the model on behalf of sustainable and competitive coastal destinations.
• Participatory process. This model calls for a participatory process, involving different tourism stakeholders in the policy-making process. NECSTouR recommended that the current and future economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities with their residents is kept as a key-goal by all those who will implement this model.
• Holistic vision. In the line with the values of the mode, NECSTouR Vice-President recommended that tourism should not be seen anymore as an individual and isolated activity but as an economic sector that is rooted to the territory where it takes place, affecting and affected by a range of sectors, policies, businesses and people: what we name the Visitor Economy.
• NECSTouR Priorities. Finally, Mr Korthoudt highlighted that the model acknowledges and feeds on the NECSTouR ‘Interregional strategy 2019-2021 for the Tourism of Tomorrow’ and recommended that its priorities - the so-called “Five S for the Sustainable Tourism of Tomorrow”: Smart Destinations, Socio-cultural Balance, Skills and Talent, Safety and Resilience, Statistics and Measurability - are taken at the base of each policy decision on tourism.

NECSTouR is fully committed towards further dissemination and capitalisation of this model, inviting other Regions from the Mediterranean and beyond to adopt the model and to use for free the project tools (online platform for bench-marking through the use of a single system of indicators specific for C&M tourism management and Green beach model) for their policy purposes.

Replication of the Model. At this regards, NECSTouR Communication Manager - Mr Tomaso Comazzi - moderated a roundtable focused on the replication of the project's methodology and application of the model in other destinations. All the advantages of applying for the project tools and the model have been introduced by those destinations that are using them already and discussed among the participants.

Synergies. A second Roundtable has been dedicated to Synergies with other Initiatives and Projects on Mediterranean Maritime and Coastal Sustainable Tourism. CIVITAS Destinations Project - a project where NECSTouR has been sub-contracted to provide support in coordinating and enhancing the activities of tourism and transport stakeholders networking at the project level - was in the list. 

The event has been organised by CPMR with the cooperation of NECSTouR and hosted by the Catalan Delegation in Brussels, in the framework of the European Week of Regions and Cities. Ms Isabel García Muñoz, Member of the European Parliament and Ms Meritxell Serret Aleu, Representative of the Catalan Government to the EU intervened among the others. Mr Stefano Ciuoffo, Councillor for tourism and trade of the Tuscany Region, pronounced highly appreciated opening and closing remarks, as MITOMED+ Project leader.

Cooperation with CPMR. NECSTouR and CPMR took advantage of the event to sign on the same day a Memorandum of Understanding to take steps towards in their collaboration about their involvement in political and technical initiatives concerning existing and future European Tourism policy and strategies (read more).

Partner Cooperation. On the following day, a meeting among the partners of the Project - and including several NECSTouR members, such as Tuscany and Andalusia Regions, CNR-IBIMET, IPTPO Poreč and the University of Girona - has been dedicated to the definition of the final conference of the Project next December.

MITOMED+'s Press Release