People Powered Tourism: empowerment of local communities through co-designing experience based transformative travel to enhance visitor economy
Within the People Powered Tourism partnership 14 project partners from 10 Danube Region countries join their efforts to empower local communities (incl. marginalised groups) in less frequented neighbourhoods of touristic cities and remote rural areas close to them via social innovation schemes, enabling them to valorise their unexploited cultural/natural assets and co-design sustainable, experience-based, transformative tourism services to establish or enhance their visitor economy and generate socio-economic benefits locally. The broad partnership, representing different types of organisations, boards complementary knowledge, and is supported by 12 ASPs from 9 Danube Region countries.
Programme: Interreg Danube Region 2021-2027
Duration: 01.04.2025 – 31.03.2028 (36 months)
Budget:
Total EU budget: 2.538.365,00 EUR
Partner’s budget: 182.800,00 EUR
Lead partner: Municipality of Szeged – Lead Partner (HU)
Partners:
Szeged and Surroundings Tourism Nonprofit Ltd. (HU)
BURST Non-profit Ltd. (HU)
Dubrovnik Development Agency DURA (HR)
Institute for Tourism (HR)
City of Sarajevo (BA)
Brasov Metropolitan Agency for Sustainable Development (RO)
Regional Development Agency for Podravje - Maribor (SI)
City Hall of Chișinău (MD)
Agency for Sustainable Development of the Carpathian Region “FORZA” (UA)
Project objective: The aim of the project is to respond to the challenges of modern tourism through a new tourism approach—the visitor economy—by effectively involving local communities. At the heart of "new tourism" are human connections, encounters, personalized experiences, and unique needs that enrich the opportunities offered by tourism destinations. According to this new perspective, the focus should shift from available products and attractions in destinations to their socio-economic impacts, thus enabling high-quality visitor experiences. In turn, targeted visitor experiences can bring about real social and economic changes within the destination’s community.
Challenges:
The project addresses global issues such as:
Sustainability: Balancing the environmental, economic, and social impacts of tourism.
Overtourism: Managing excessive visitor numbers at popular historical sites and strengthening lesser-known destinations.
Involving local communities: Many rural and economically less developed areas lack awareness of the potential in their cultural and natural assets and have limited resources to develop sustainable tourism.
Ecotourism opportunities: Enhancing the increasingly popular ecotourism sector, with a focus on harnessing the potential of nature-based tourism.
Expected results:
PPT Toolbox: A set of tools to help local communities design tourism services that emphasize social and economic benefits.
PPT Guidebook: A guide supporting sustainable tourism with a special focus on nature-based solutions.
Danube Visitor Economy Platform: An online space for tourism providers and policymakers to access best practices and innovative solutions.
Visitor Economy Roadmaps: Ten transnational, collaboratively developed action plans to support the transformation of local tourism based on visitor economy values.
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