IndusTour

Tourism is a driving force in many European countries and regions. However, the sector faces several challenges, in particular: the green transition, contributing to the shared goals of a climate-neutral Europe; the diversification of the tourism offer to avoid the growing phenomenon of over-tourism in very popular places and seasons; and the response to the increasing search for authentic and meaningful tourist experiences.
With this in mind, industrial tourism represents a very promising area for development. The concept is to visit everywhere and throughout the year operational companies and deactivated or future industrial sites which enables visitors to learn about past, present and future economic activities.
In this context, six regional and local authorities from Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Poland and Republic of Serbia as candidate country, are joining forces and pooling their experience to develop the IndusTour project. Its goal is to improve public policies in the scope of strengthening industrial tourism in the partner territories, primarily as a means of promoting innovation, resilience and diversification of tourism services and destinations. Side effects are also expected in terms of increased attractiveness and competitiveness of the past, present and future industrial sites visited.
Through a 3-year interregional learning process, partners and associated political authorities will: 1. understand the state of play in each territory and identify inspiring good practices; 2. develop and implement improved policies; 3. create favourable regional ecosystems involving key stakeholders; 4. strenghten their capacity for a better appropriation and integration of industrial tourism in public policies.
Implementation of new projects, management changes and global revisions are expected as concrete improvements of the respective policy instruments, going from tourism plans and strategies to ERDF-funded programme.