CULTURAL ROUTES

In order to maintain Europe’s leadership in the world tourism industry there is a need to modernise the European tourism policy and offer. Diversifying European tourism products, capitalising on common and rich heritage (natural, cultural, historical, etc.), is the first of the key priorities identified to boost the competitiveness of the European tourism industry in the latest Communication on tourism, “Europe, the world’s No 1 tourist destination – a new political framework for tourism in Europe” (COM(2010) 352 final), adopted by the Commission on 30 June 2010.

In this respect, cultural heritage represents a European competitive advantage and cultural tourism couldn't be other than the most appropriate starting point for differentiating our tourism offer. An important "niche" market of transnational thematic tourism products and services (e.g. cultural routes crossing several regions or countries) has remained unaddressed and has great potential for growth. Our common European cultural heritage and core values can be more widely promoted and its tourism potential could be further developed at EU level.

Believing that in the "niche" market of cultural tourism there is a lot of potential for growth, and believing that EU action could really add value to national, regional and local policies in this field, the overall objective of the present call for proposals is twofold:

1. to contribute to differentiating the European tourism offer, capitalising on the shared cultural heritage;
2. to contribute integrating both horizontally and vertically the cultural tourism sector, facilitating clusters/networks of both cultural tourism products and enterprises of the cultural tourism sector.

For further information visit:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=5339

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