The first three Capacity Building sessions, led by experts of the Phoenicians’ Route, and the Focus Groups, conducted by experts from Libertas University of Zagreb, were held in Pisa (Italy) on June 12th at the North-West Tuscany Chamber of Commerce (lead partner), in Xanthi (Greece) on June 14th at the Xanthi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and in Pafos (Cyprus) on June 17th at the Pafos Tourism Board. The activities were organized within the framework of the “SMARTIES for SMEs – Pills of Sustainable, Smart, Regenerative Tourism to Empower SMEs in the EU Mediterranean Area” project, co-funded by the European Union’s COSME Programme.
The Capacity Building sessions aim to support SMEs in developing innovative project proposals to access the project’s mini-grants and to promote regenerative tourism best practices. The Focus Groups involve 10 stakeholders selected by local partners, with the goal of collecting data and insights to develop a compendium on the needs and best practices of tourism SMEs, one of the project’s main outputs.
The Xanthi event was attended by Fotis Vlachos, Officer of the Directorate for International and EU Relations of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Hellenic Republic, who delivered a presentation on the “Importance of Cultural Routes for Sustainable Development.”