600.jpg)
Recently, partners and stakeholders from across 8 partner regions travelled to Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi to continue planning and making progress on the new Interreg Europe TOURBO Project, for which Donegal County Council are partners.
Donegal County Council together with stakeholders from Donegal Airport and Donegal Local Enterprise Office are delighted to participate in this project which was set up with the goal of assessing obstacles and models the regions have for green transition and MSME support. This was the second interregional meeting where the partners and stakeholders had a chance to discuss policy improvement face to face alongside experiencing some of the practices in person. This three-day event specially emphasised the sustainability aspects of twin transition in tourism industry. First day was kicked off by keynotes from Lapland tourism key stakeholders with the participation of Sustainable Travel Finland representatives, which were followed by a workshop about the improvement of policy instruments. Participants in interregional teams learned and exchanged ideas about the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of improvement in sustainability and digitalisation measures as well as in the MSME support measures in each region. On the first day TOURBO had a chance to get acquainted also with Arctic Circle and learn about the sustainability principles of Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, a local accommodation business in the area.
On the second day of the visit TOURBO took off for a deep dive in practical sustainability examples and headed about 130 km north of Rovaniemi to Pyhä-Luosto destination for keynotes and field visits. In Luosto, local tourism companies presented their sustainability approaches. A workshop session followed with stakeholders from partner regions sharing their practices as a lead to discussion about the economic influence of sustainability activities. After the workshop TOURBO headed out for a field visit to a local reindeer farm and learned about how the traditional Lappish livelihood of reindeer husbandry and tourism are connected to provide sustainable experiences for tourists. A local accommodation business hosted the final session of the day in Pyhä and talked about examples of MSME funding in Finland and Ireland also shared their own story behind their sustainability principles. Donegal County Council were delighted to give stakeholders, Donegal Local Enterprise Office an opportunity to showcase a model of best practice with their Green for Business supports.
On the third day the stakeholders had a chance to discuss sustainability in practice further with local tourism companies while the partners participated in project steering group meeting.
Interregional visits are in the core of TOURBO project, as TOURBO is all about gathering and exchanging experiences between regions and about supporting resilience of tourism industry by developing sustainability and digitalisation of tourism MSMEs. This project has a goal of identifying 24 good practices that support these goals, and so far, 10 have been identified and are published on the project website. Tourism sector has suffered severe blows in the recent years due to the covid-19 and geopolitical crisis. These global crises alongside with the digitalisation of the society and sustainability awareness have changed the consumer behaviour and preferences. TOURBO is a part of Interreg Europe program, and thus aims to help regional authorities to develop policies and strategies that aid tourism sector utilise the ongoing twin transition for resilience.
The TOURBO project is coordinated by Seville Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation, and carried out with partners from 7 countries: Finland, Germany, Ireland, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia and Greece.
As a network we greatly look forward to engaging with the tourism sector, to seek inspiration and fruitful inter-regional exchange. If you would like more information on the project, you can go to the following media outlets.
Website: www.interregeurope.eu/tourbo
Instagram: InterregEUTourbo
Facebook: @InterregTOURBO
Linkedin: Tourbo Interreg Europe
