Identity and sustainable rural tourism
One of the keys for the development of rural areas is to enhance the identity of the local areas themselves, through sustainable development initiatives that respect their surroundings. Identity-linked and sustainable rural tourism can bring benefits throughout the area of reference, in terms of both employment and wealth, as well as offering considerable margins for development.
These activities are carried out by companies that are reflected in the following values:
- they create products and services in line with local traditions and culture.
- they take great care over the production/provision of the product/service with strong local connotations.
- environmental but also cultural and social sustainability.
The aim of the project, which capitalises on three experiences from the previous IT-FR Smartic, Vivimed and Prometea tenders, is to consolidate today’s companies by using identity and responsibility as values to drive promotion, but also as a business management tool. The goal is to make consumers, tourists or temporary citizens understand the value underlying the services on offer.
The project is developed through the following implementation components;
1) analysis of company positioning and diagnosis.
2) strategic sustainability paths.
3) design for new services.
4) market positioning for new services.
This project will produce the following output: 
1) a range of standard solutions for energy efficiency.
2) 50 companies will receive “Quality Made” certification, the standard created by the Smartic project.
3) five territorial networks.
4) a promotion and distribution plan.
The geographically limited cooperation area, which is easily accessible to tourists, creates a single tourism area where it is important to have companies that work in accordance with shared standards.