THEMATIC AREAS
Sustainable tourism
Based on data provided by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Mediterranean area is among those with the most interesting growth prospects in the near future. As for the Adriatic-Ionian area, in 2018 (data are not available for 2019) arrivals roseto122,7million,7,6% more than in 2017. The comparison with the 2010 data shows that the increase rate in the macro-region was really impressive, being approximately over 66%, from 74 to 122,7 million arrivals. The positive trend concerned all 8 countries in the area, with higher variations for emerging countries such as Albania. In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia reached the best performance in term of variation (+14%), but also traditional tourist attractors as Greece, Italy and Croatia had significant increases of international arrivals: Italy, which is among the top 5 destinations in world tourism, reached 61,6 million arrivals in 2018, 6% more than 2017, Greece grew from 27,2 to 30,1 million arrivals (+11% compared to 2017) and Croatia grew from 15,6 to 16,6 million arrivals (+7%).
As the world faced the devastating consequences ofthe COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism sector was among those being affected most severely. In its Covid-19 Technical Assistance Package for Tourism Recovery, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) foresaw a decline of international tourism of 60% to 80% as compared to the previous year, amounting to losses ranging between EUR 840 billion to EUR 1.100 billion in export revenues worldwide.
Tourism is an essential pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and one of the most important EUSAIR Pillars. The livelihoods of many in the Adriatic and Ionian Area depend on it, especially women and particularly in small islands and emerging countries.
Given that, the AI-NURECC PLUS SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ACTION aimed, through a common thread and three events distributed throughout the project’s lifetime, to deal with the issue of Tourism by looking at the evolution of crises due to the Covid- 19 in order to provide data, experiences, research, training in finding solutions for alternative development, as well as recommendations including young people from EUSAIR countries as a powerful force in the development of sustainable tourism.
RESULTS
- The AI-NURECC PLUS project prepared an interesting Report on Nautical tourism. The report can be downloaded from the website.
In AI-NURECC there was a Task Force on tourism and cultural heritage. It promoted capitalisation of existing project ideas and exchange of best practices. The task force collaborated with existing EUSAIR technical bodies (TSGs and AII Round Tables) and contributed to enhance training and skills in the field of tourism business and cultural heritage in order to achieve a critical mass of pilot projects promoting for instance the development of sustainable, accessible, innovative tourism, including thematic tourist and cultural routes. This activity was even more relevant given the 2018 European year of cultural heritage accross Europe. The partners involved in the EYCH’s activities could organise AI-NURECC info-kiosks and events.
The aim of these info-kiosks was to support the dialogue in the field of culture, by offering visibility to the non-EU Members’ culture and promoting the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the Adriatic-Ionian region. It resulted in the following deliverables:
- AI-NURECC Capitalisation workshop on Tourism and Cultural Heritage, back to back the conference on Creative and Cultural Industries (Greece – April 2018);
- Five AI-NUREC Info-kiosks events (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Italia) ;
- Integrated Dialogue with (TSGs and AII) promoting an AI tourism label.