Speeding up Sustainability Skills in Tourism

While tourism and the leisure sector play an important role in the region’s economy, tourists also put enormous pressure onthe resources of the hosting communities. Conflicts on the use of resources such as water, energy and additional waste thatburden local infrastructures are major disruptors for the liveability of local communities. As tourism is one of the fastestgrowing industries, especially on the coastline, pressures are only expected to increase with it, explaining the urgent need torethink the sector locally and accelerate transition towards sustainable, resource and energy efficient systems. Individualtourism SMEs (hotels, restaurants, campsites, …) want to act but do not know where to start when it comes to whichmeasures to take, how to finance them, are hindered by obsolete regulations or unclear policies and lack the necessary skillsto undertake a transition on their own.

3ST therefore proposes skills development for 2 different target groups. Firstly, to provide the necessary skills to publicauthorities & sectoral organisations to set up local collaboration models in order to accelerate sustainable transition.Secondly, to use these collaboration models as a means to engage with tourism stakeholders and provide them with thenecessary skills to identify and adopt measures that will increase their sustainability in energy/water/waste.

3ST will improve the capacity of stakeholders to implement sustainable tourism models and practices thanks to integrativeapproaches mixing trainings, coaching and experience with new forms of collaboration and bringing together multipleactors of the value chain: local authorities, DMOs, development agencies, higher education, civil society and SMEs, but also indirectly involved stakeholders (building sector, suppliers, farmers...). Various approaches will be investigated attransnational level and adapted to local specificities, made as accessible as possible, and provide replicable models for thewhole NS area.