Project Summary
AIM:
The project aims at internationally position Europe as an integral destination of quality and excellence for cultural tourism, by promoting its most charming rural villages and making the most of CCIs technologies to provide an unforgettable experience to visitors
The project started in May 2019 and will:
- Build strategic consensus between public & private stakeholders for the making up of a transnational route of 10 European Charming Villages across 6 EU countries with a solid and competitive offer for visitors;
- Foster the creation of at least 70 innovative products & activities in these villages coming from transnational value chains made of tourist agents & integrating cutting-edge CCIs technologies to reinforce their attractiveness;
- Develop a sound promotional, branding, and cross-selling strategy to enhance the international visibility and reputation of Europe as an integral cultural destination, targeting the right segments & key outbound markets
Role of NECSTouR
NECSTouR is bringing its expertise and experience of other cases from other European Regions. It also lead the designing the CHARM Communication, Promotional and Commercialisation Plan.
Besides NECSTouR, two other NECSTouR members are in the Partnership Consortium: Catalan Tourism Board (lead Partners) and Institute for Tourism Research in Northern Europe
News and Best Practices
15th UNWTO/PATA Forum on Tourism Trends and Outlook
Patrick Torrent, Executive Director at the Catalan Tourist Board, shared on Placing Tourism as a Strategic Pillar in Policies for Rural Development at the he 15th UNWTO/PATA Forum on Tourism Trends and Outlook scheduled to be held in Guilin, China in a hybrid format from 15-17 October 2021.
He provided an overview on the NECStoUR strategy and recovery measures.
NECSTouR Activity Report 2020
Together with our members and partners, we have successfully accomplished our strategic objectives. Our work has led to important achievements in 2020. Relive them through our freshly published activity report.
CHARM and NECSTouR at ITB Berlin 2021
The international tourism fair traditionally taking place in Berlin is going digital for the second time in a row. Due to COVID restrictions, the event will take place in the platform ITB Now. NECSTouR will participate to ITB Berlin in the framework of the CHARM project, with the rest of the partnership, led by the Catalan Tourist Board.
You are invited to join the CHARMing Villages transnational route
With the CHARM project quickly arriving at its end, comes the moment for NECSTouR regions to join the CHARM vision for a rural tourism relying more and more on modern technologies (AR, VR, online booking, social networks...). If you're interested to have the opportunity to sponsor one of your village, join the CHARM movement!
CHARMING Villages: empowering the rural destinations of Europe
The CHARM project final conference was held online on Tuesday the 2nd of March, starting at 10:00 AM CET. The event, hosted by NECSTouR, featured interventions from partners and villages representatives of the CHARM project from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Germany and Belgium. As well as as tourism experts and guest speakers from Visit Greenland, Visit South Limburg, Regione Liguria, Asio and the Digital Tourism Think Tank.
COSME 2020 Call for Proposals: Innovation and digitalisation for tourism SMEs
Apply now! As expected, the next COSME tourism call is focusing on "boosting the uptake of digitalisation, innovation and new technologies in tourism through transnational cooperation and capacity building". COSME is the European programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The CHARM Project organised its Bridge Event on Technologies in Rural Areas during the Forum Turistic
At the occasion of the Forum TurisTIC, two of NECSTouR projects took the stage. Mainly, it was the CHARM project with its bridge event to talk about “Technologies applied in rural areas: adding value to the tourist product”. But the Interreg MED STC project also took the opportunity to organise an online transferring workshop with Spanish stakeholders.
CHARM Newsletter #3 - Guide for Promotional Practices of Destinations
The third newsletter of the CHARM project was released in October 2020 to announce the release of their Guide for Promotional Practices of Destinations.
Forum TurisTIC 2020
The Forum TurisTIC is an annual event organized in Barcelona by EURECAT technology center, promoted by Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Provincial Council, aiming to connect innovation and technology with the tourism industry. At this occasion, the CHARM project is organising its bridge event on technologies in rural area and the Interreg MED Sustainable Tourism community is holding a workshop on all-year tourism tools.
CHARM Guide to Promote and Commercialise Tourism Destinations Released
This guide was produced by the Digital Tourism Think Tank (#DTTT) on behalf of the CHARM project (co-funded by the COSME Programme of the European Union) in order to provide inspiration and guidelines on "what and how to apply new methods in order to promote and commercialise the destinations" to the ten CHARM Villages.
Report: NECSTouR held a CHARM Workshop in Burg-Reuland (Belgium)
On Friday the 4th of September, NECSTouR Permanent Secretariat organised a workshop with tourism stakeholders of the village of Burg-Reuland in Eastern Belgium. As the partner following the Belgian pilot village of the CHARM project, NECSTouR was responsible to put together this working session. I was co-organised by the Tourist Info Burö of Burg-Reuland/Ouren, with the support of our member the German-speaking community of Belgium.