On 19 December 2022, an online seminar was organised by the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion in collaboration with the Interreg Med Sustainable Tourism Community.
The event entitled “The Interreg Med Sustainable Tourism Community: Success stories of cooperation and best practices. Future opportunities for Sustainable Tourism in North Macedonia” has the objective to open the doors to the North Macedonian stakeholders which are active in the field of tourism. The seminar gave them the opportunity to know better the main results of the Interreg MED Sustainable Tourism Community as well as to showcase some best practices developed by four modular projects. Also the event gave an overview of some good examples of alternative tourism models developed by two INTERREG projects with a particular focus on eco-tourism.
The Joint Secretariat of the Interreg Euro-Med Programme joined to the event with a presentation of the new Interreg Euro Med Programme 2021-27, since the new Mediterranean Interreg programme is now involving North Macedonia as eligible country, allowing public and private actors to participate in the cooperation projects as beneficiaries of funds.
The seminar was attended by around 40 participants, the majority of them were interested in developing new Interreg projects on alternative and sustainable tourism models.
The AIE project Office Andrea Di Girolamo introduced and moderated the on-line seminar.
Different guest-speakers were invited to take the floor in the first session, such as:
- Pascale FAUVEAU LAGAYE, Joint Secretariat of Interreg Euro-MED;
- Josep RODRIGUEZ, Coordinator MED Sustainable Tourism Community, Barcelona Provincial Council;
- Céline DUBREUIL, Programme Director of Plan Bleu;
- Dora PAPATHEOCHARI – University of Thessaly;
- Roberto GRASSI, NECSTouR;
- Ermete MARIANI, UNIMED – Mediterranean Universities Union;
In the second session some examples of successful cooperation projects were illustrated by:
- Dejan ISKRA (RDA Green Karst) – VIA DINARICA Trail Project;
- Barbara SARNARI (SVI.MED.) – CONSUME-LESS Project;
- Lucía PRIETO FUSTES (Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation – IUCN) – DestiMED Project;
- Kostas ZAPOUNIDIS (Pieriki Development Agency) – EmbleMatiC Project;
- Claudio BORDI (ANCI Lazio’s External Expert) – SuSTown Project;
- Ivanka NESTOROSKA (Faculty of Tourism and hospitality, University St. Kliment Ohridski-Bitola) – I-TOUR Project.
In conclusion the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion presented to the participants the upcoming events “HIGH-LEVEL CONFERENCE – Sustainable Tourism as a strategic driver for the responsible and inclusive growth of the Adriatic Ionian Region and its mountain areas” which will be held in Skopye on the 23th of January 2023 from 15:00 to 18:10 CET in the framework of AI-NURECC PLUS initiative. The event will be focused on macroregional context and state of play of Sustainable Tourism policies in EUSAIR cooperation area.
Agenda: Agenda on-line event_North Macedonia_ ST_19 Dec2022_def
All the presentations avaialble here: PDF Presentations_NM
