Fostering tourism innovation system in Adriatic-Ionian Region
Project FOST INNO aims to contribute to the long term growth of tourism in the Adriatic Ionian region through innovations capacity building. Common challenges of the programme area as; prolonging tourism season, improving quality in tourism and fostering better tourism employment conditions, are going to be tackled in accordance with sustainability principles to reinforce region’s competitive position. The overall objective of the project is to improve and ensure long term competitiveness of the Adriatic-Ionian area by enhancing innovation capacity in sustainable tourism. Hence, the main project intervention objective is to change current practise of insufficient incentives for innovations in sustainable tourism through main project outputs and deliverables: developed strategy for fostering innovations in sustainable tourism in Adriatic-Ionian area, established networking structure and increased knowledge transfer between business, users, academia and institutional stakeholders through Adriatic-Ionian Tourism Innovation Centre. Joint strategic framework for innovation in sustainable tourism is going to improve Adriatic-Ionian cooperation in tourism; giving common directions for policy makers’ actions and providing incentives for innovations. Networking structure embodied in future Adriatic-Ionian Tourism Innovation Centre is a multipurpose tool, foreseen as a learning and dissemination platform. Innovation incubation will be main purpose of Centre’s activities, designated to facilitate market access for innovative ideas. In order to provide valuable contribution in exchange of cooperation opportunities and best practices, networking structure has to become knowledge base and information hub for different actors such as; SMEs, universities and research centres, relevant tourism authorities, regional authorities, etc. In order to ensure sustainable competitive position of the Adriatic-Ionian area in the tourism market, transnational approach is needed for responding to challenges shared by participating countries. Given the current fragmented situation at macro-regional level, joint development of innovation system will facilitate promotion of innovative activities and transfer of project results into policies and practice. This project aims to create a long term knowledge transfer related to the innovation in sustainable tourism development in order to contribute solving tourism issues that are common for all partner countries involved.