Beyond CULtural TOURism: human-centred innovations for sustainable and circular cultural tourism

Cultural tourism entails opportunities but also risks.

If not managed properly, cultural tourism can easily turn into a value extractive industry, generating negative environmental, social and cultural impacts on local communities and ecosystems.

This project will develop specific strategies to promote an understanding of cultural tourism, which moves away from a stop-and-go consumer-oriented approach towards one that puts humans and circular economy models at its centre, paying attention to nature, communities and cultural diversity.

Place, intended as the genius loci, the ancient spirit of the site and people as co-creators of its uniqueness, culture, art, tradition, folklore, productivity, spirituality, are the focus of Be.CULTOUR.Wide and diversified partnerships of stakeholders from 18 EU and non-EU regions of Northern-Central and Southern Europe, the Balkans, the Eastern neighbourhood and the Mediterranean, will be the driving force of the project.

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 will co-create innovative place-based solutions for human-centred and circular cultural tourism.Collaborative Heritage innovation networks will be established in 6 European deprived remote, peripheral and deindustrialised areas and cultural landscapes identified as pilot heritage sites: committed to the projects objectives, they have defined clear cultural tourism related challenges requiring innovation, which will serve as the basis for the collaboration with 12 additional mirror ecosystems.