On 15 October 2020, the European Alliance group hosted an online seminar “How to promote the recovery of regional tourism after COVID-19” as part of the 2020 edition of the European Week of Cities and Regions.
Our president, Cllr Kieran McCarthy moderated a panel discussion where representatives of regional and local governments, the European Commission and stakeholders shared innovative and sustainable local solutions on how to restart tourist activity and grow the sector’s resilience. The discussion was especially relevant given that the tourism sector in the EU experiences a 75% revenue loss, putting millions of jobs at risk, while full recovery is predicted to happen only in 2-4 years’ time.
Ms Zuhal Demir, the Flemish Minister for Justice and Enforcement, Environment, Energy and Tourism opened the panel discussion focusing on innovation and presenting a digital tool championed by Flanders – a barometer application that enables visitors to check whether tourist sites are crowded or not, thus reinforcing visitors’ safety while enabling travel and sightseeing.
Mr Milosz Momot, Deputy Head of Unit “Tourism, Textiles and Creative Industries” in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW) gave an overview of the EU-level actions towards tourism sector recovery and of the recommendations of the Tourism Convention that had taken place October 12, 2020. Mr Milosz emphasized that the action-oriented recommendations place regions as the driving force of sector recovery.
Meanwhile, Catalan Tourist Board Executive Director and President of the Network of European Regions for a Sustainable Competitive Tourism (NECSTOUR), Mr Patrick Torrent shared the Catalonian government’s two-fold response to the Covid-19, which includes actions to sustain the sector through the crisis and to help the recovery in line with digital and Green Deal objectives. Mr Torrent presented actions coordinated by NECSTOUR, showing the essential role of interregional cooperation in reinventing the sector by making it more resilient.
Head of the Galway Capital of Culture 2020 programme, Ms Marilyn Reddan highlighted how re-imagining culture sector activities could help the sector bounce back and adapt to the changing behavioural patterns among users. Drawing on the Galway 2020 experience, she presented how reinventing cultural experiences actually helped to reach further audiences, ensure continuity of activities, and even led to increased tourist activity in remote and rural regions that have become the new centres of culture.
Finally, Ms Nanette Maupertuis, EA group’s COTER commission coordinator and president of the Corsica Tourist Board presented the Corsican regional strategy for the recovery of the tourism sector. Corsica, which relies on tourism for 30% of its GDP, has taken the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to implement a holistic strategy to build the sector’s resilience, which includes social, environmental, digital and innovation aspects.
The panellists shared a sentiment that it was important to capitalize on the good work championed by local and regional governments and actors and to promote a cross-regional and multi-stakeholder collaboration to sustain and rebuild the tourism sector.