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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Sustainable EU Tourism – Shaping the Tourism of Tomorrow

The words "sustainable EU tourism" appear, followed by text that says "shaping the tourism of tomorrow".

The “Sustainable EU Tourism – Shaping the Tourism of Tomorrow” project provides support to EU tourism destinations as they navigate towards greater sustainability and resilience, in line with the Transition Pathway for Tourism.

Throughout the project's duration (December 2023 to December 2025), emphasis will be placed on ensuring the economic, social, and cultural well-being of local communities, alongside the preservation of their natural environments.

Specifically, the project will

  • identify key challenges and best practices related to sustainable and resilient tourism
  • establish a peer-to-peer twinning mechanism for tourism destinations facing similar challenges. This mechanism will facilitate the sharing of experiences, mutual learning and collaboration towards common objectives
  • in addition to this project, DMOs will be informed of other European Commission instruments that support peer learning activities in public administrations. These include study visits, expert missions, and workshops – such as the TAIEX-EIR Peer-2-Peer tool (environmental technical assistance) or REGIO Peer2Peer + (regional technical assistance)
  • carry out communication campaigns targeting DMOs and tourists

On 18 April 2024, a 1-hour webinar was organised to present the project’s activities to interested stakeholders, in particular destinations. All materials are available below

Recent progress

The survey on EU tourism destinations closed on 31 May 2024, collecting 222 replies from Destination Management Organisations (DMO) across all 27 EU Member States, as well as an eligible country (Montenegro). The countries with the highest share of replies were Croatia, Austria, Italy and Czechia. Most respondents represented rural or natural destinations with less than 800 000 inhabitants. A summary of the main results, as well as a detailed analysis, can be found below

The survey shows that DMOs consider themselves as having key roles in marketing and branding the destination, tourism management and planning, representing the destination’s interests, and developing and delivering tourism initiatives and products. However, they do not give high priority to activities such as visitor flow management and adopting risk and crisis management plans. 

This leaves room for improvement, as these areas are highly necessary to counter unbalanced tourism and facilitate the sector's recovery. To address this challenge, the European Commission funded the Crisis Management and Governance in Tourism project, aimed at strengthening the EU tourism ecosystem’s preparedness for managing and mitigating future crises.

The survey also assessed the positive impacts of tourism. These include

  • an improved local economy
  • increased employment opportunities
  • enhanced offers of entertainment and cultural events

The most important factors identified for positively influencing a destination’s resilience were preserving natural features and cultural sites, as well as enhancing environmental and socio-cultural sustainability. 

Similarly, investing in effective destination management practices and promoting off-season tourism can diversify the local tourism offer. This allows DMOs to benefit from more diversified income sources. Lastly, renovating tourism infrastructure can lead to high-quality levels of utilities and facilities, improving the destination’s array of tourism services.

Conversely, the most common negative impacts experienced by DMOs were

  • the increased costs of housing and living. These are often connected to the gentrification of urban areas and increased costs of services and utilities
  • environmental degradation and congestion, which endangers a destination's natural features
  • economic distress during the low season. This provokes fluctuations in destinations’ demand and supply of tourism services
  • precarious and irregular work, mostly linked to tourism seasonality

Further details collected on the negative impacts of tourism were also linked to the type of DMO. Mountain DMOs are the most exposed to inflation and tourism pressure. Whereas coastal destinations are heavily affected by tourism seasonality, while urban destinations experience high levels of ‘touristification’ of their services. Lastly, large DMOs (level NUTS 1) suffer most from the increased costs of housing.

Relevant insights were also collected concerning the measures implemented at DMO level. 66% of respondents are already working on improving their tourism sustainability and resilience, mainly addressing 

  • environmental issues (128 initiatives)
  • sociocultural aspects (118 initiatives)
  • economic aspects (95 initiatives) 

Most measures are financed through national or EU-funding programmes, primarily the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Additional funding sources include the Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE), the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), as well as Research & Innovation programmes (Horizon).

The key success factors for implementing these measures proposed entail establishing effective stakeholder engagement and collaboration mechanisms. Developing sustainable tourism planning and strategies is equally critical.

In terms of next steps, the project is identifying best practices and key challenges for tourism destinations by leveraging these survey results and other literature. Insights on these topics are already available on the project's LinkedIn profile, including an overview of selected best practices.

This project's results will also be published on the EU Tourism Platform.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact Alberto Venditti at: alberto [dot] vendittiatintelleraconsulting [dot] com (alberto[dot]venditti[at]intelleraconsulting[dot]com)