NECSTouR shared the Vision of European Regions for the Tourism of Tomorrow 2050, our good practices and projects at the European Tourism Convention. This major event gathered three Commissioners - Internal Market, Transport, Cohesion and Reforms - and representatives of all actors of the tourism ecosystem. It was held online on 12th of October to facilitate a dialogue on the sustainable recovery of tourism from the crisis related to the coronavirus.

The discussion focussed on the ingredients of the future European Agenda of Tourism 2050 and the participants pledged to improve the sustainability, digitalisation, and resilience of the EU's tourism sector.

The NECSTouR Presidency, Catalonia, Vice-Presidencies, Andalusia and Flanders, Secretary General, Tuscany, and Executive Committee Member Île-de-France had their slot either in plenary or the workshops to contribute to this key debate.

NECSTouR proposals such as our call to create a Marshall Plan for a sustainable recovery of the tourism sector, and connecting sustainable mobility to sustainable tourism – investing in multimodality, innovation and customer centric development - at European strategic and policy level, were selected by the experts and endorsed by the Convention. NECSTouR also supported the creation of a European tourism data space which was quoted by Commissioner Breton in his final speech.

We count many experts among our members who debated on the topics of “Safe and seamless travel”, “Greening holidays” and “Tourism Powered by Data” during the morning workshops, like Mr Enrico Mayrhofer, Head of EU Liaison Office of the Tuscany Region, tasked to report the conclusions of those debates.

During the plenary, Mr Manuel Alejandro Cardenete Flores, Deputy Minister at Regional Government of Andalusia targeted the investment needs of tourism in the forthcoming financial framework. Mr Cardenete emphasized the role of EU Regions as the key ingredient for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted his opinion “Towards more sustainable tourism for EU cities and regions”, stressing the need to work on sustainable tourism and asking for an EU budget line for the sector.

NECSTouR has been calling for a European Agenda for a sustainable tourism of tomorrow. Our General Assembly welcomed the Commission’s Communication on Tourism and Transport in 2020 and beyond while defining our members’ vision of this tourism of tomorrow and claiming an active role for regions in shaping and implementing it.

This Vision is the result of a capitalisation exercise based on 18 initiatives deployed by NECSTouR Regions and it includes principles, commitments and proposals to shape the future agenda:

NECSTouR warmly thanks Commissioner Breton and the Tourism Unit of the European Commission for having invited us to contribute to this conference. We are ready to continue to work with the European Commission, other EU institutions and partners to develop and implement the future European Agenda for Tourism 2050, in a way to implement a more responsible and sustainable tourism for all.

Related Links

- The Vision of European Regions for the Tourism of Tomorrow 2050
- Annex -  NECSTouR Members’ outstanding initiatives leading to the “5S of the Sustainable Tourism of Tomorrow”
- Visual Summary of the Vision
- Summary Report of NECSTouR Extraordinary General Assembly Meeting 2020 (for Members only)