Following the publication by the European Commission in February of the Tourism Transition Pathway (TTP), and their recent invitation for us to express our concrete commitment by answering their call for commitments survey, on 11th May we organised a successful webinar "How NECSTouR and our Regions can Implement the Tourism Transition Pathway Through Interregional Cooperation".

In cooperation with the European Commission Tourism Unit, the session offered members the chance to demonstrate their region's efforts in sustainability leadership to the European Tourism Agenda, and to discuss and explore NECSTouR's proposal to work together to ensure that the TTP is connected to our regions’ daily reality by aligning our responses to the European Commission's call for commitments.

Active discussions with the European Commission

We were very pleased to count on the participation of Ms Kirsti Ala-Mutka from the Tourism Unit of the European Commission, who enlightened us further on the call for commitments and gave NECSTouR members the opportunity to engage in an open discussion with DG GROW.

Members expressed their remarks and questions directly to the Commission, sharing their views about the links between the TTP and their destination’s reality, and in turn Ms Ala-Mutka was able to learn more from the NECSTouR regions’ interest in the process of co-implementation.

Accompanying our members

The TTP is indeed the first step towards an agenda for sustainable and competitive European tourism, which NECSTouR has been calling for. The TTP topics appearing in the call for commitments survey are all sustainable tourism-related actions, which our members are already deploying through their own strategies and projects. That is why NECSTouR proposes that we work together to align our responses to the call and co-implement the TTP.

During the webinar, NECSTouR Secretariat presented the methodology we propose for co-implementing some of the 27 TTP topics, which match with our flagships Better Places to Live, Better Places to Visit, Tourism of Tomorrow Lab and Climate Action Plan. We discussed this proposal with our members so that we can set agreements and jointly proceed by responding to the call for commitments in a coordinated way.

Next steps

We will be continuing these important discussions with our members at the NECSTouR AGM in Ringkøbing, Denmark, at the end of the month, to decide how to best co-implement the TTP in partnership with NECSTouR. We are looking forward to continuing the productive insights and members views launched at the webinar and building on this momentum to successfully align our responses to the European Commission's call and reinforce our voices as key drivers of the European Tourism Agenda.