Europeana for Tourism Policy - Recommendations December 2014
2015-02-01
Europeana has just published this new set of recommendations on Europeana and Tourism Policy, that have come out of the Greek and Italian Presidencies.
They are the work of policy-makers from Ministries of Culture and Tourism in the European Union as well as members of DG Enterprise, Member States Expert Group (MSEG) and European Tourism & Travel Advisory Group (ETAG) under the Greek and Italian Presidencies. This work was coordinated by Culture24, Plurio.net, the National Documentation Centre of Greece (EKT), the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries (ICCU) and the Europeana Foundation.
The recommendations set out the changes in thinking and behaviour needed to achieve the systematic use of Europeana content in tourism. They highlight the need to incorporate Europeana's offering into the existing tourism ecosystem and that to do this successfully we must recognise the aims, challenges and rules of the tourism industry.
For example, one starting point is to take advantage of destinations that put culture at their heart of their marketing strategies because mass tourism activities are absent or simply not possible, e.g. places that lack interesting landscapes, architecture or other specific pulls. There is a real need to demonstrate the benefits and best practices available and to build solid and productive relationships between cultural institutions and the tourism industry. These recommendations outline ways that cultural institutions as well as cultural and tourism policy-makers can begin to do this.
