Our story
The MED area is the largest global tourism destination, attracting almost 1/3 of the world’s international tourist flows mainly within the maritime and coastal dimension.
This situation translates into environmental threats classifiable into 3 macro-issues:
- 1. MED ports suffer from high touristic pressure and environmental damage during peak holiday season due to multiple intertwined issues (e.g. large volume of incoming cruise ships, overcrowdingin small historic towns, over-exploitation of local resources);
- 2. Fragile natural areas located along the coasts of popular MED ports (e.g. Natura2000 sites) are threatened by mass tourism due to the seasonal visiting trends and inefficient resources management in the tourism supply chain;
- 3. While ports and coasts are overcrowded, the neighbouring hinterland regions remain poorly explored in spite of their authentic cultural interest and tourism potential.
To tackle these issues, the project develops a new tourism model that connects nautical and seaside destinations with inland territories, tracing new touristic routes strategically designed to reduce environmental pressure on natural coastal areas. How? By diversifying the tourism offer, encouraging detours from coasts to inlands and promoting all-year-round visiting opportunities, the project intends to mitigate the damaging effect of seasonality and to reduce pollution in overcrowded destinations through a more efficient use of local resources and the valorisation of eco-sustainable services.
The proposal responds to the Programme SO2.7 as it promotes a new model of smart ecotourism that moves from the maritime field to protect and requalify also the inland/rural dimension; besides, local communities are activated in this process through a participated, bottom-up rediscovery of local touristic assets.
Ultimately, the above-described elements are functional to achieve a more effective protection, conservation and preservation of all natural habitats against current criticalities of the tourism industry.
