The Spirit Youth Project - leaded by NECSTouR in 2016-2017 in partnership with South Limburg, the University of Girona, Municipality of Prato, Montserrat, Equotube and Eurocircle - has been selected as one of the projects to be showcased on the occasion of the European Commission's Conference aimed at to examine the added-value of EU support for tourism projects under the COSME programme.

Marketplace. Spirit Youth has been presented at the “Marketplace”: the Conference exhibition hall, where Conference participants met, networked and presented their projects.
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Spirith Youth developed a new product for young people, based on the concept of spiritual tourism. A total of 75 young pilots from 10 countries were able to test natural resources, landscape, cultural and heritage sites which incapsulated the spirituality concept during the medium low season and reported about their experiences, to tailor new tourism products to the specific needs of young people.

Main Results. Prof. Silvia Aulet form the University of Girona presented in the plenary session the project's main results:
- Definition of Spiritual Tourism in the European Union;
- Best practices catalogue on Spiritual tourism management and communication
- Report summarizing spiritual tourism literature review and its link with the existing offer to ensure integration of new products, grant territorial sustainability and the success of the product
- Spirit Youth hub composed by all types of relevant stakeholders interested in keeping alive this concept and develop it as a tourism product
- Guidelines for improving the Spirit Youth experience in the tested destinations and replicating it in new ones.

Other projects. Among the 14 projects that have been showcased during the day, several of them has been implemented by partnership consortium composed by some NECSTouR members: Wildsea Europe (Catalan Tourism Agency, Donegal County Council); Eurovelo 5 (puglia); Hiking Europe (Catalan Tourism Board, NIT-Kiel, Emilia-Romagna, Donegal County Council, University of Girona); Discover55 (SiTi); Famous (Liguria); Creative Loci Iacobi (Agencia de Turismo de Galicia).

The conference has been organised at the "Autoworld Brussels" by the European Commission under the title "Showcase Conference on Tourism - Tourism SMEs are Connecting Europe". It saw the intervention of Ms Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission, Ms Anna Athanasopoulou, Head of Unit, Tourism, Emerging and Creative Industries, European Commission and of Mr Mr Julien Guerrier, Director of Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.

The photos taken by the organisers during the event are available here