On the 27th of November, the three leading regions of the Smart specialisation platform on "Digitalisation and Safety for Tourism" - Andalusia, Lapland and Slovenia - had the opportunity to attend jointly with NECSTouR the 4th Steering Committee Meeting of the Smart Specialisation Thematic Platform for Industrial Modernisation and the following Joint Thematic Platforms Conference 2018 "Working Together towards Joint Investments", organised on the 27-28 November in Bilbao.

This event was the first time where the three Thematic Platforms (Agri-Food, Energy and Industrial Modernisation) were together enabling over 145 regions and countries to work closely together within 28 interregional and cross-borders partnerships in order to explore synergies, learn from each other, exchange best practices and do networking and business at the interregional level.

The event was closed with a visit at the Guggenheim Museum and a typical diner served at the hall of the same museum.

More info about the event

On the following day, a partnership meeting of the Smart Specialisation Platform (S3P) on Digitalisation and Safety for Tourism was hosted by In2Destination in the Eutokia Innovation Center in Bilbao. The meeting was lead by Ms Eija Raasakka from  Lapland (FI), Ms Rosa Maria Ropero and Jose Francisco Benítez from Andalucia (ES) and Mr Boštjan Brumen from Slovenia  and counting with the attendance of the Castilla y León, more people from the regions involved in the platform and the support of ReConfirm presented their vision for the future phases. A short-term action plan was defined with the aim to concrete the steps to involve stakeholders and to work on the future ideas for the investment projects.

NECSTouR is one of the main promoter of that initiative and fully recognise it as part of the activities of its working group on EU Funds for Tourism.