Sustainable cultural tourism policies can significantly support the development of European regions. Cultural tourism, especially in rural areas and in urban peripheries, can be a driver of sustainable economic, social and cultural growth. The EU-funded SmartCulTour project, which started in 2020 and will end in 2023, investigates cultural tourism to provide European regions with strategies that engage stakeholders in co-creating smart cultural tourism practices. The project is deployed through field tests in 6 Living Labs and involves 10 partners, including UNESCO along with several universities and other actors across Europe.
SmartCulTour (Smart Cultural Tourism as a Driver of Sustainable Development of European Regions) is a 4-year project, funded by the European Union in the frame of Horizon 2020, grant agreement number 870708. The project is developing a platform that extensively monitors the European regions through a combination of traditional and non-traditional data sources, helping to visualise the main trends and phenomena.
The data, alongside the collected indicators to measure the impact of cultural tourism on the sustainability and resilience of the 6 Labs’ destinations, can eventually support effective decision-making. Cultural tourism policies with a positive impact have been identified through desk research and semi-structured interviews, the findings of which are analysed to formulate proposals for sustainable local interventions in the Labs.
“Our intention is to build bridges between policy makers, nature-conservation organisations, heritage experts, tourist entrepreneurs, locals, among others, to create a common, shared vision on local culture and heritage and its potential application within a tourism context.”
— Bart Neuts, KU Leuven, SmartCulTour project coordinator
SmartCulTour project coordinator, Bart Neuts, is an expert in tourism externalities and sustainable development, with a specific focus on social carrying capacity studies in urban environments. He explains that the 6 Living Labs assist local stakeholders in developing community-led cultural tourism innovations by serving as platforms in which innovative arts and service design-based methods are applied. The Labs are based in Rotterdam Metropolitan Area (the Netherlands), Scheldeland (Belgium), Utsjoki municipality (Finland), Split Metropolitan region (Croatia), Vicenza (Italy), and Huesca province (Spain).
In the case of Vicenza, the activities carried out in the Living Lab have directly enhanced the touristic outlook of the city, as confirmed by the testimonies gathered from participating stakeholders.
Caterina Soprana, Municipality Representative and President of the Culture Commission of Vicenza, initiated a project to bring together architecture, culture, tourism and economics. Its overall goal was to improve the attractiveness of Vicenza both in Italy and worldwide, which resulted in the city running as a candidate for Italian Capital of Culture 2024. “The cooperation between associations, university and municipality can help develop a new touristic offer, and really enable the city’s tourism to be innovative and sustainable,” states Soprana. https://youtu.be/JZQ8mTH8dTo
Giulio Vallortigara Valmarana, owner of the Palladian Villa Valmarana ai Nani, validates the significance of the project for the increased collaboration among stakeholders, as it provides the chance to share ideas and experiences. “What this territory and several others in Italy lack is the chance to create opportunities to analyse and improve the network of the tourist offer,” he explains. https://youtu.be/kiXDpryamso
Giulia Basso, a literature theory expert, complements that “networking is a chance and a need for all the cultural tourism operators to analyse challenges and catch opportunities to share innovative solutions.” Basso created and is developing the ‘Literature itineraries’ project to discover places from narratives into real life. She describes Santa Maria Nova as an “emblematic place to underline the importance of the Living Lab experience, which remains unknown to tourists and citizens.” https://youtu.be/Z8IDQatZ9j0
In face of the current challenges affecting the cultural tourism sector, the purpose of SmartCulTour remains relevant considering the nature of the project and the scope on less visited European regions. To some extent, the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic period provides opportunities for a build-back-better approach in the 6 Living Lab destinations under investigation, aimed towards an outcome of tourism that is sustainable, inclusive, and supported by the local community.
UNESCO’s role in the project is to ensure the relative convergence of all 6 Living Labs within the work packages and SmartCulTour project flow. A certain degree of comparability is required to achieve the expected objectives and ensure appropriate impact assessment of the action, while respecting the spirit of community-led initiatives and their essential need to diverge and work around local contexts. UNESCO plans to develop and deliver tailor-made activities for each Lab to raise awareness among relevant stakeholders and increase their capacities to harness the mutual benefits of culture and tourism for society.
“UNESCO’s capacity building opportunities offered to the stakeholders of the 6 Living Labs concern, firstly, the Organization’s approach to sustainable cultural tourism destination management. Secondly, how to interrelate and how to sustainably integrate the offer linked to living heritage with tourism and how to enhance the sustainable use of such kind of heritage for tourism purposes; and finally, the Historic Urban Landscape approach.”
— Costanza Fidelbo, Assistant Project Officer, Culture unit, UNESCO Regional Bureau
The tools created within the SmartCulTour project help local communities to set up their own co-creative, community-driven trajectories. These tools can then be widely shared through dissemination activities, so that the methods and knowledge developed by the project can inspire other destinations. This process will culminate in the delivery of a toolkit and roadmap that can offer a blueprint to other European destinations for leveraging local heritage within tourism strategies and policies in a sustainable and community-driven way.
Links:
SmartCulTour website: http://www.smartcultour.eu/
Living Lab Vicenza: Testimonials from stakeholders