CCI4TOURISM FINAL EVENT IN THESSALONIKI
On December the 1st 2022, the final event of CCI4TOURISM project took place in Thessaloniki, Greece. It was the opportunity to present the key outputs and significant experiences of strengthening entrepreneurial skills of cultural and creative industries for the valorisation of cultural heritage and the development of sustainable tourism models in the Adriatic-Ionian Regions.
The transnational event was hosted by project partner Business and Cultural Development Centre (KEPA) and was attended by project partners, project beneficiaries and other guests. Due to live-streaming the conference was open to public also on-line.
The session was opened by the representative of the Region of Central Macedonia, Deputy Governor of Digital Governance Angelos Charisteas and Davide de Nicolò, chief project officer of the lead partner Tecnopolis Science and Technology Park (TNO). He shortly overviewed the project and pointed out the unfavourable conditions due to the covid 19 epidemic which accompanied the implementation of the project for a good part of the time.
Regardless of these circumstances in the past three years, the 9 project partners of CCI4TOURISM project have been developing strategies that have notably improved the entrepreneurial skills of beneficiaries engaged in the cultural and creative industries. Moreover, the CCI4TOURISM project was also included in the ADRION Thematic Sub-Cluster focused on Cultural and Creative Industries, which involves two other ADRION projects: EMOUNDERGROUNDS and CREATURES. The goals and the main achievements of the ADRION Thematic Sub-Cluster were presented by Ida Carolla, project manager on behalf of the Nardò Municipality (EMOUNDERGROUNDS). The sub-Cluster elaborated the policy paper with recommendations and follow-up for policy-makers to influence the political debate on the cultural heritage management, new defined project ideas, focused on the specific territorial innovation needs, that could be faced and funded within the 2021-2027 EU framework programming period and finally The Memorandum of Understanding, which established “AN ADRION OBSERVATORY FOR CULTURE AND TOURISM SECTORS”.
The partnership of the CCI4TOURISM project has achieved three most important objectives: the Transnational strategy for the strengthening CCIs skills and competences, the Transnational Action Plan for a “Cultural tourism 4.0” offer across the AI area and setting up the Network of Creative Hubs for the heritage valorisation.
To deliver these main results the partners had implemented many different activities and had worked on various needed documents that provided the framework and the basis for the next steps. Very important one is the Guidelines to support CCI for tourism market in the Adrion area which were presented by Claudia Baracchini from Friuli Innovazione research and Technology Transfer centre (FINN).
The partnership established the Network of Creative Hubs, called CAST INITIATIVE, which mission is to support the inter-linkage between CCIs and tourism industry to develop and deliver creative and sustainable tourism products and implement positive sustainable practices in both sectors. As Goran Pavlov from IRI center (Croatia) explained, one of the most important objectives is to ensure the long-term sustainability of the CAST initiative activities leveraging on Transnational Strategy and Action Plan.
Each partner’s organization established its own Local Creative Hub which form the Creative Hub Network. Their orientation, specialization of action and experiences were shown by the local hub managers Tamara Paleka and Branka Nakić from Zadar County Rural development Agency (AGRRA) and on-line by Vladimir Amidžić from the City Development Agency Banja Luka (CIDEA).
«Taking into consideration the trends that are identified in the Cultural Tourism sector, the current Action Plan aims at providing policy makers, economic operators and key stakeholders with tools and concrete recommendations to make CCIs drivers for a renewed cultural tourism offer to reach project main goal», has been pointed out by Eleftheria Ntonou from Helenos Consulting (external expert of KEPA).
The last session of the event was dedicated to challenges and future opportunities for Adriatic-Ionian Cultural Tourism 4.0. From this point of view Claudia Baracchini shared the key Transnational strategy’ priorities which are shared performance measures, digital and green knowledge hub, transnational gotomarket and peer learning&networking.
Katarina Sekirnik from Development Agency Sora (RAS) from Slovenia and Jano Puškar from European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina (FEP) shared some common experiences from implementing the Pilot Actions mechanism, which has proven to be a useful supporting tool in hybridization of both sectors. This was illustrated by concrete examples of experience sharing which were presented by pilot actions’ beneficiaries and partners from Slovenia, Serbia and Greece.
The closing speech was assigned to Francesca Imperiale, the associate professor of Business Administration and expert in CCI management University of Salento.
Finally, Stavros Mantzanakis, the moderator from Helenos Consulting pointed out some final remarks that could be summarized as: “CCI4TOURISM project has great assets and runs a strategic foresight with the long-term strategy and road map with actions”.
Overall, this closing conference – organised by KEPA – was a great dissemination and capitalization event.
You can watch the whole video of the event here.