On the 5th – 7th June 2019, the MED Sustainable Tourism Community gathered in Barcelona on the occasion of the Mediterranean Sustainable Tourism Convention 2019 to debate the tourism sector’s contribution to a more sustainable and inclusive growth in the Mediterranean region. Panel discussions, round tables, workshops, side events and sites visits, showcased how territorial projects of the Interreg MED Sustainable Tourism Community can help in preserving the unique landscapes and precious resources of the Mediterranean by promoting a sustainable tourism.
Plan Bleu, as partner of BleuTourMed, organizing the Conference, presented the results of the capitalization activities undertaken, promoting the sustainable solutions given by 17 territorial cooperation projects of the MED Sustainable Tourism Community, active in 12 countries and involving 200 organisations. Within the framework of the Interreg MED Programme, these projects have been developing solutions, designing innovative tools and implementing pilot actions in the northern Mediterranean shore since November 2016. As the community strengthened, Plan Bleu has developed a capitalization strategy to foster the activities of the community. Four policy factsheets has been released on the promotion of sustainable tourism, as a factor for sustainable and inclusive growth in the Mediterranean region. Disseminating this 3 years work, Plan Bleu allowed the first spreading of the final results among all the participants at the Convention.
The Convention gathered 70 speakers and more than 200 participants from public authorities, private sectors and academic institutions and international organisations, coming from the Mediterranean region. Most notably, it featured the intervention of representatives of local, national and international public authorities such as: the Ministries of Tourism of Croatia and Greece, Portugal Tourism Board; key regional and urban destinations and also the European Commission, NECSTour – Network of European Regions for a Sustainable and Competitive Tourism and the UfM – Union for Mediterranean. The private sector’s stances were also represented at the Convention by the World Travel and Tourism Council or the European Tourism Association and Exceltur – the Alliance for Excellence in Tourism.
Finally, some territorial projects organized side events to the Mediterranean Sustainable Tourism Convention 2019.
