The problem:
The border area between Italy and Austria offers a wide variety of sites of naturalistic (natural parks, landscapes and biodiversity), cultural and historical interest. However, joint cross-border tourism planning and management initiatives are scarce, except in a few cases, such as Alpine Pearls. It is therefore necessary to develop a vision of the area as a common economic asset to be protected and enhanced.

The solution:
The GoToNATURE | GOvernance, TOurism and NATURE project aims to improve the quality of the local tourism offer and to develop tourism products that enhance the natural and cultural resources by involving citizens and economic actors in a common idea of tourist destination management. The enhancement of a high quality tourist offer will concern a total of 6 sites of natural and cultural interest, included in a single cross-border circuit dedicated to the following themes: active holiday, agro-food, culture, crafts and folklore of which these areas are rich examples.

The three main objectives are:

1) Improving local tourism governance, sharing with citizens and economic actors an idea of tourism destination management. A model of tourism governance will be developed.

2) To include the principles of The European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas in the design of innovative tourism products. To this end, a toolkit for sustainable tourism will be developed to be applied in pilot actions.

3) Designing a high quality tourism offer that integrates active holiday, wellness, nature and culture with food, crafts and folklore. New products developed with the same criteria will be promoted and marketed as a single cross-border tourist circuit.

Our contribution:
Etifor will follow the technical, managerial and methodological assistance service for destination tourism development activities in the Valbelluna area in Belluno’s area. The path foresees the involvement and consultation of the different stakeholders at local level.

GoToNATURE is a project co-financed by the European Union: 873.456,00 €