Author: Manuela Granada

• The European capital will host an online workshop to discuss the future of the tourism sector on Tuesday April 9 from 10:00 to 12:00.
• The event, Building Tourism Ecosystems in Belgium, is part of the European FU-TOURISM project.
• Experts will analyze the opportunities offered by a sector that must adapt to the new reality of sustainability and digitalization.

This Tuesday 9 April, from 10:00 to 12:00 CEST, the Finnova Foundation, from Brussels, will present the online workshop Building Touristic Ecosystems in Belgium, the second workshop organized as part of the European FU-TOURISM project. The event aims to build a local ecosystem and explore the potential and challenges of the Belgian tourism sector, sharing best practices focused on sustainability and digitalization.

Under the title “The importance of sustainability and digitalization in tourism”, experts and stakeholders from the Belgian tourism sector will discuss the future of a sector in full rush to innovate, and the dual green and digital transition. They will share their projects and best practices in digitalization and/or sustainability in tourism, highlighting the potential and challenges they face. The presentations will be followed by a round table discussion that will enable all stakeholders to generate a dialogue on the challenges of sustainability and digitization in different tourism sectors.

This workshop is part of the European FU-TOURISM project, which supports European tourism SMEs in their transition to a green, digital and inclusive economy, with a focus on applying the principles of the regenerative economy. Funded with 4 million euros from the SMP program (COSME’s predecessor program) and with a duration of 36 months (2023-2026), the European FU-TOURISM project is led by EUPOLIS Group and is composed by a partnership of eight entities from Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Austria, Poland, and Italy.

“One of the objectives of the program is to enable accelerated SMEs to access European funds through programs such as Interreg, LIFE, Digital Europe and Horizon, enabling their project can benefit from additional funding up to 2 million euros through these programs,” explains Juan Manuel Revuelta, CEO of Finnova, a partner in the project, from Brussels.

LIVING LABS FOR THE TRANSITION OF TOURISM SMES One of the main pillars of the FU-TOURISM project is the development of a platform and network of 4-Helix collaborative clusters, known as Living Labs for the transition of tourism SMEs. These clusters will enable SMEs to be placed at the heart of the tourism ecosystem, adopting a multi-actor approach that considers the broader needs of the destination, visitors and local citizens. “This objective of living labs is strategic, as it aims to generate local actions that can be replicated and have an impact at European and global level,” emphasizes Revuelta.

FU-TOURISM presents the first workshop of the cycle of 6 workshops that it will offer in the coming months. The workshop took place on Thursday 21 March at the Transfiere fair, the leading R&D&I forum in southern Europe.

Finnova is co-organiser of this workshop, which is also part of the Startup Europe Week SEW24.

Finnova Foundation has been in charge of presenting the workshop “FU-TOURISM STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP: €4M for Sustainable Innovation and Green Entrepreneurship in the Spanish tourism ecosystem“ at the Transfiere fair, held in FYCMA, Malaga, from 20 to 22 March. The meeting brought together various agents from the Spanish tourism ecosystem to discuss issues such as digital development and the green transition within the sector.

The objective of the hybrid workshop, which was broadcast live from the Transfiere fair, was to analyse the opportunities and challenges of the Spanish tourism sector through the exchange of best practices focused on the digitalisation and sustainability of the ecosystem. The speakers presented examples and best practices in digitalisation and sustainability in tourism, highlighting the opportunities and challenges. The event was developed around a stakeholder panel and a round table after the presentations that allowed all the speakers to discuss the challenges of sustainability and digitalisation in various tourism sectors.

The stakeholder panel of the workshop was divided into three blocks. The first focused on sustainability and the environment, with the participation of experts in the sector such as the director of Tourism and Business Development Costa del Sol Malaga, Pedro Barrionuevo Gener and the CEO of Stemy Energy, Álvaro Sánchez Miralles. In the second block, focused on digitalisation and twin transition, the Founder of the Ibero-American Forum of Sustainable Tourism #TuriSOS, Alex Che, the Director of the Chair of Innovation of the Gandía Campus of the UPV, Jose Marín-Roig Ramón and the director of ASICOTOUR, Ana Belén Fernández Seijas, took part. Finally, the Design Lead, Regenerative Transformation and Eco-social Ecosystems, Sharam Yalda, addressed Market Intelligence, showing how to use this term for the development of sustainable tourism.

The workshop concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Patricia Cavanillas, Director of Communication and Institutional Relations at Finnova. Throughout the debate, the speakers presented their opinions on various topics related to the current situation and the short-term future of the Spanish tourism industry. 

The panelists wanted to underline the challenge faced by tourism in aligning itself with innovation; the need to connect existing entrepreneurial initiatives with tourism. When it came to defining the situation of tourism in Spain, most of the speakers agreed on the complex situation it is going through, with a large number of micro-destinations to promote, but they also highlighted the positive note in the evolution of the use of digital tools, which favours entrepreneurship. On the other hand, another aspect on which the round table agreed was the virtues that the union of public and private entities can bring to tourism and the creation of systems so that small agents can contribute value to the sector. 

Juanma Revuelta, CEO of the Finnova Foundation, wanted to highlight two other topics discussed at the table: the opportunities that tourism can offer in depopulated Spain and the need to align the ecological transition with the sector.  On the other hand, Revuelta also highlighted the current tools provided by the European Union in terms of tourism promotion to help repopulate uninhabited areas.

With this workshop, the Finnova Foundation also became co-organiser of Startup Europe Week (SEW24), an initiative that is present in more than 300 cities in almost 50 countries, making it the largest regional entrepreneurship event in the world.

FU-TOURISM project: support network for tourism SMEs  

The workshop is part of a cycle of 6 workshops showcased by the European project FU-TOURISM, which is funded by the COSME programme with 4 million euros. The project aims to assist small and medium-sized tourism enterprises in Europe in their transition towards a green, digital and inclusive economy, with a focus on implementing the principles of the regenerative economy.  The project will have a duration of 36 months (2023-2026), is composed of entities from Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Austria, Poland and Italy and is led by EUPOLIS Group. The Finnova Foundation is leading the transferability, replication and communication of the project, considering the innovation methods used by Startup Europe Awards (SEUA), a strategy promoted by Startup Europe and supported by the European Commission. SEUAs are a tool to identify disruptive SMEs and startups that foster public-private collaboration and promote self-employment as a driver of job creation.

– On March 15, the European Commission organized a hybrid event to reflect on the past, present and future of the tourism ecosystem.

– The Finnova Foundation, partner of the European project FU-TOURISM, attended the event where this project was presented.

Last Friday, March 15th, Finnova Foundation was present at the event “2-year anniversary of the Transition Pathway for Tourism”, organized by the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission (DG GROW). The FU-TOURISM project, in which Finnova Foundation is a partner, was presented at the event.

The event was the setting for unveiling some of the projects of the COSME Program for the competitiveness of enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which finances numerous initiatives that help small companies to access new markets. Among them was FU-TOURISM, which seeks to create a supportive environment for small and medium-sized tourism companies, encouraging greater collaboration in innovation between them and the sector’s incubators and accelerators. The Finnova Foundation attended the event with the aim of creating synergies, networking and exchanging ideas that serve to produce future developments within the ecosystem.

The event, which celebrated two years of the Transition Pathway for Tourism, brought together stakeholders to reflect on the past, present and future of the tourism ecosystem. Attendees took stock of the progress made since the publication of this document, exchanged best practices and created networks to reflect on the future evolution of the tourism ecosystem.

Ecosystem of support for tourism SMEs

Funded by the COSME program with 4 million euros and with a duration of 36 months (2023-2026), the European project FU-TOURISM is led by EUPOLIS Group and integrated by a partnership of eight entities from Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Austria, Poland and Italy. FU-TOURISM will develop a support ecosystem for tourism SMEs, promoting greater cooperation in innovation between these companies and incubators and accelerators in the sector.

To this end, it will launch an acceleration program that will identify and support a total of 102 tourism SMEs in the six European countries that are part of the project through support services for sustainability, digitalization, inclusive business models and direct financial assistance.

During the acceleration program, 10 SMEs from each country will be selected in a transparent and open manner to receive a 5-month support and a grant of 20,000 euros each. In addition, the Scaling Up program will select 42 SME consortia (7 per-country) to receive a grant of 30,000 euros each and corresponding business support.

Living Labs for the transition of SMEs in tourism

One of the key pillars of the FU-TOURISM project is the development of a platform and network of collaborative 4-Helix Clusters, known as Tourism SME Transition Living Labs. These clusters will enable SMEs to be placed at the center of the tourism ecosystem, adopting a multi-stakeholder approach that takes into account the broader needs of the destination, visitors and local citizens.

Transition Pathway for Tourism

In February 2022, the European Commission published the Transition Pathway for Tourism, a strategy created jointly with stakeholders that sets out concrete actions for the coming years. Through an online call for commitments, tourism stakeholders are invited to contribute to this process, supporting the green and digital transition of the tourism ecosystem, ultimately increasing the resilience of the sector. 4 sets of commitments and pledges have been published since then, and the call remains open for a continuous expansion of the stakeholder community.