General and specific objectives
This action seeks to enhance the competitiveness of European tourism and promote the image of Europe as a global tourist destination of excellence. The Commission wishes to support projects which are innovative in their approach, propose sustainable solutions and are based on the close cooperation with and involvement of tourism and CCIs-related SMEs and professionals. Within the general and specific context explained above, the general objective of the action is to explore the spill-over effects of culture and creativity on tourism products and services in terms of:
revitalising tourism attractions and destinations, and diversifying transnational tourism experiences;
prolonging seasonality of EU destinations and/or enhancing sustainability of tourism offers;
boosting innovation across transnational tourism value chains.
The specific objectives of the action:
developing innovative solutions or management tools for tourism attractions or destinations through cooperation between tourism and CCI SMEs;
exploring new ways of engaging visitors, with the help of CCIs-related companies or professionals, to revitalise existing tourism products/services and/or create new ones,
creating solid public-private partnerships in the area of tourism and CCIs and ensuring the exchange of knowledge and experience within the partnerships.
Priorities
Proposals must therefore give due importance to the following priorities:
a) the development of transnational thematic tourism products focusing on innovative solutions, such as but not limited to AR apps, used as interface to explore tourism attractions/destinations and develop new modes of visitor servicing, storytelling and gamification;
b) the creation of trans-national cooperation networks facilitating capacity building through knowledge and innovation transfer, joint ventures, and the creation of replicable toolkits or handbooks;
c) the combination of services, products and customised offers, resulting from the cooperation between tourism and CCIs SMEs, within public-private partnerships; 7
d) the elaboration of new niche offers targeting audiences that transcend national geographic markets. For the purpose of this call for proposal, “thematic” refers to the tourism product that is conceived and structured around a clearly identifiable theme/context (e.g. local gastronomy, sports or wellness activities, historical figures or events, archaeological sites, etc.).
Deadline 19/7/2018
Budget The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 2 000 000. The maximum grant per project will be EUR 400 000. It is expected to fund 5 to 7 proposals. The grant is limited to a maximum reimbursement rate of 75% of eligible costs. EASME reserves the right not to distribute all the funds available.
Eligible consortia
The consortium must gather a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 members/partners – different legal entities – covering at least 5 eligible countries – as listed under section 6.1.3; 6.2.2 The consortium must be composed of at least: a. four SMEs – Small and Medium Sized enterprises: 2 active in the tourism and 2 in the CCIs sector12; and b. one national or regional or local public authority.
Implementation period
The duration of projects must be between 18 – 24 months.