Beyond CULtural TOURism (BeCULTOUR)

The overarching goal of this project is to develop and test human-centred and circular economy approaches for sustainable cultural tourism in deprived remote, peripheral or deindustrialized areas and cultural landscapes, as well as touristic high demand over-exploited areas, through collaborative innovation and human-centred product-service-policies design methodologies, to enhance sustainable cultural tourism in European regions and cities for local communities’ empowerment, wellbeing enhancement, socio-economic development and cooperation at cross-border, regional and local level.

Context

Be.CULTOUR aims to move beyond tourism through a longer-term human-centred development perspective, enhancing cultural heritage and landscape values.
Cultural tourism entails opportunities but also risks. Tourism can be a highly volatile economic sector. If not managed properly, cultural tourism can also easily turn into a “value extractive” industry, generating negative environmental, social and cultural impacts. Be.CULTOUR develops specific strategies to promote an understanding of a cultural tourism which pays attention to nature, communities and cultural diversity. “Place”, intended as the genius loci, the ancient spirit of the site expressing its “intrinsic value” and “people” as co-creators of its uniqueness, as well as its “time space routine”, are the focus of Be.CULTOUR.

Needs addressed

Contribute to inclusive economic growth, communities’ wellbeing and resilience, and nature regeneration in pilot and mirror regions, stimulating effective cooperation at a cross-border, regional and local level. The core partners of the Consortium will progressively build Be.CULTOUR sustainability by broadening the interregional collaboration while anchoring it to relevant EU initiatives in the academic, business and institutional realms.

Expected results

Diversified partnerships of stakeholders from 18 EU and non-EU regions. A community of 300 innovators (which includes regional authorities and municipalities, clusters and associations, museums and tourist boards, entrepreneurs, chambers of commerce, citizens, researchers, practitioners as well as project partners) in 6 pilot regions co-creating innovative place-based solutions for human-centred development through sustainable and circular cultural tourism.
Collaborative “Heritage innovation networks” established in 6 European regions identified as “pilot innovation ecosystems collaborating with 16 additional “mirror innovation ecosystems”.
And 6 community-led Action Plans, 19 innovative human-centred solutions.

Financing

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme

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