Created on the continuation of the BlueTourMED project, The MED Sustainable Tourism Community is the second generation of an horizontal project aiming to find solutions for the protection and promotion of natural and cultural resources in the Mediterranean area through a coherent strategy of Community Building, Communication and Capitalisation.

What is the goal of the MED Sustainable Tourism Community?

“Despite its economic and social importance, tourism development is exerting undue pressures on natural and built environment. These pressures may threaten the quality of life of local populations, degrade the tourism assets and, by consequence, affect negatively future tourism developments. Exploiting the full potential of tourism requires an innovative approach and sustainable basis. Therefore, effective strategies and targeted integrated actions should be developed and implemented across the Mediterranean region.”

Created in November 2016 within the framework of the Interreg MED Programme, the MED Sustainable Tourism Community has been renewed for a three-year period till June 2022 to make tourism a real driver for inclusive and sustainable growth.

Since 2019, five new territorial cooperation projects have joined the Community that now gathers 22 projects co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), almost 300 organisations (public authorities, private companies, universities, NGOs and international organisations) active in 12 European-Mediterranean coastal areas. Besides, two Strategic Projects, approved in October 2019, focusing on governance of sustainable tourism will join forces with the Community.

The project partners are the Deputacion of Barcelona (DIBA), Arco Latino, the Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED), Plan Bleu, University of Thessaly (UTH), the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion (AIE), the Regional Development Agency of Green Karst (Slovenia) and NECSTouR.

NECSTouR permanent secretariat is one of the new partners in the community, leading the work package aiming for the capitalisation of the knowledge generated by the modular projects into tourism and cohesion policies at different level of decision (local, regional, national and European). The capitalisation will be made through cooperation events and regional working groups.