Our approach is twofold: enable collaborative destination governance mechanism and empowering them to measure tourism success according to values beyond traditional volumes:

1) Through the personalised tourism-data consultancy delivered by the Tourism of Tomorrow Lab to at least 4 pilot regions in 2022, these regions who will acquire experience in measuring tourism impacts as a structural decision making policy will trigger change to less experienced destinations through the collaborative knowledge framework offered through the network. As mentioned, through the project « Support to the tourism ecosystem: towards a more sustainable, resilient, and digital tourism” we expect to easy the integration of sustainable tourism measurability, more and more progressively, into the destination management models.

1. By transforming the “Better Places to Live, Better Places to Visit” principles into policy measures and projects. NECSTouR signed the Barcelona Declaration in April 2018. Better Places to Live, Better Places to Visit which aims at balancing the uses of cultural heritage and other territorial assets by the residents, the visitors, and the tourism businesses. It proposes five key principles addressing aspects related to governance, sense of belonging, promotion, measurability, and interpersonal relations to be endorsed by tourism as well as the cultural and other related stakeholders. It shows the consensus of key stakeholders committed to demonstrate what tourism and cultural heritage sectors can achieve by working more closely together, for the benefit of European citizens and cultural heritage as well as businesses, visitors, and destinations, in line with the SDGs. This is why NECSTouR Regions keeps identifying examples of turning principles into policy measures and projects. First, through an event in Barcelona in September 2022, aiming at generating exchanges, reflections, and debates on how the wellbeing of the local community and the climate actions needs are driving the transformation of the tourism model and ecosystem, moving from sustainable to responsible and regenerative tourism. The event will reflect the legacy of the Barcelona declaration “Better places to Live, Better Places to Visit” in NECSTouR members’ strategies, actions, and initiatives. Equally important is the development of interregional pilot projects to build methodologies and test them on the ground. This will be possible if European funding is obtained.