The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vratsa took part in the „TOURBO“ project's second Interregional Seminar that took place on 9-11 April 2024 in the city of Rovaniemi, Finland. The seminar was centered on the topic of "Assessment of challenges and models for innovative green transition and support for sustainable models in SMEs". It focused on how they contribute to promoting sustainability in the tourism sector through the "TOURBO" project – “Boosting the transition pathway of MSMEs in tourism with green and digital transformation“, funded under the Interreg Europe 2021-2027 program.
Ms. Iliana Filippova, Chair of the Board of Directors of CCI Vratsa, and Ms. Svetlana Borissova, International Cooperation Expert at CCI Vratsa, represented the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vratsa.
The project will run until mid-2027 with the aims of creating a stable and progressive framework for the integrating of a sustainable tourism sector into local and regional policies, especially with the aim of transitioning MSMEs towards intelligent and ecological transformation through the quadruple-helix approach.
The project involves 8 partners from Spain, Finland, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, Germany, Croatia and Ireland, with Seville Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation as the lead partner.
The objective of the second interregional seminar was to present and discuss the policy instruments proposed by each partner for changes in the project. A thematic seminar/workshop was organised and conducted, where the partners were divided into three groups to discuss the respective policy instrument. Representatives from the stakeholders' group, who are the main drivers of change in a given policy, also took part in this discussion. These included a representative from the Municipality of Vratsa, as well as an NGO representative in the field of tourism (Open Vratsa). We achieved a very productive and fruitful discussion, all partners shared what can be changed in the national selected instrument, what are the challenges and therefore what are the opportunities for change.
The second day of our visit to Rovaniemi was dedicated entirely to presentations of various tourism companies and what activities they undertake in the field of sustainable tourism. Some of the partners presented the economic impact on sustainable tourism activities.
The program was filled with visits to various tourist sites related specifically to the seminar topic, namely sustainable tourism. This gave everyone the opportunity to see firsthand how sustainable tourism is promoted in Finland, and in the Lapland in particular.
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