PRESERVE conference: the environment to trigger for more sustainable tourism

Co-Financed by European Regional Development Fund

General context

Tourism is a common denominator of all European regions, urban and rural, because each territory has a unique cultural heritage and landscape that deserve to be preserved. Having said that, many examples show that tourism can be a threat to the beauty and diversity of the European landscape rather than a vehicle for economic growth, job creation or innovation, and may thus aggravate the new challenges currently facing the EU. Regions must be careful when developing their cultural heritage strategies, to think in sustainable terms and to use the right indicators, should they want to fully benefit from their tourism assets.

How can the environment be used as a leverage to make tourisme policy more sustainable?

The conference will be the opportunity for various stakeholders to learn about the project, its objectives and planned activities and to meet the partners. A thematic session will also bring together various experts and good practices to illustrate how the environment can be beneficial to tourism in Europe. On the one hand, sustainable policies can contribute to higher quality products and thus attract more people to the region but also has economic advantages through savings that can be done.

For further information about AER tourism activities, please click here

Herbert Hamele, President of ECOTRANS

He represents the European network Ecotrans, which is a European eco-label for sustainable development. This network gathers experts and organisations in Tourism, Environment and regional development, who are seeking to promote good practice in the field of sustainable Tourism.

Céline Dawans, AER Policy Coordinator

Michael Azodanloo, Head of Department for Territorial Cooperation, ICS Internationalisierungscenter Steiermak GmbH

Tony Mercer, Head of VisitScotland’s Quality and Standards

He is also a member of the Scottish Tourist Board.
VisitScotland is the national tourism organisation for Scotland.
He presented the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) which is the leading sustainable tourism certification scheme in the UK.

Antony Evans, Research scientist, BMT, iTacitus project

He works in the British Maritime Techonology Group (BMT), a leading international multi-disciplinary engineering, science and technology consultancy offering a broad range of services, particularly in the defence, energy, environment, shipping and ports and logistics sectors.
He works on the project iTacitus (Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services) , which is a European research project funded under the Sixth Framework Programme for information society technologies. iTacitus aims explore ways in which information technology can be employed to encourage cultural tourism.
The iTacitus consortium is formed from 6 organisations in 4 European countries including BMT (UK).