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SmartCulTour: Capacity Building on Sustainable Cultural Tourism
CIHEAM > AGENDAS > SmartCulTour: Capacity Building on Sustainable Cultural Tourism
  • CIHEAM Zaragoza organizes a sustainable tourism capacity building and networking activity delivered by UNESCO

On October 17th CIHEAM Zaragoza organized a sustainable tourism capacity building and networking activity delivered by UNESCO that brought together culture, heritage and tourism stakeholders from the Huesca Living Lab, from both the private and the public sectors.

The initiative was part of the European research project SmartCulTour, aimed at supporting regional development, with special attention to rural peripheries and the urban fringe, through sustainable cultural tourism.

The meeting served as an invitation to rethink tourism, diving deep into trends to develop new strategies.

Peter Debrine, senior consultant to UNESCO on sustainable tourism; Constanza Fidelbo, associate project officer at UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe; Alun Jones, manager of the SmartCulTour project at CIHEAM Zaragoza; Antonio Biescas, representative of the Provincial Council of Huesca; Fernando Blasco, managing director of TuHuesca; and different representatives of the tourism sector in Huesca participated in the meeting.

Smart Cultural Tourism as a Driver of Sustainable Development of European Regions

Sustainable cultural tourism policies can significantly support the development of the European regions. Cultural tourism, especially in rural areas as well as in urban periphery, can emerge as a factor of economic growth.

SmartCulTour is a four-year project (2020-2023) funded by the European Union in the frame of Horizon 2020. It intends to redefine the concept of cultural tourism to provide European regions with strategies that engage stakeholders in co-creating smart cultural tourism practices.

Following the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage, SmartCulTour supports evidence-based decision-making via multistakeholder cooperation while establishing a region’s culture and heritage as a sustainable resource for the future.

The project is being deployed through field tests in six living labs.

For more information visit the project’s website: http://www.smartcultour.eu/