Kick-off meeting of SYSTOUR project

The SYSTOUR project, an acronym for 'Systemic approach for sustainable tourism strategies in rural areas', developed by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino and winner of the European Interreg call for proposals, officially started on 01 March 2023 and will end on 31 May 2027.

SYSTOUR involves, in addition to the Politecnico di Torino as Lead Partner, 6 other public and private partners and over 90 stakeholders from 6 European countries (Italy, Spain, France, Hungary, Poland and Finland).

The pivotal objective of the project is to move tourist flows to unvalued rural areas and to emphasise the particularities of the contexts involved in the project, seeking a balance in the flows of each area and connecting the areas through sustainable mobility, digital connectivity and authentic experiences that an area can offer. Starting with the realisation of 6 Holistic Diagnoses of the different regions involved, the foundations will be laid for the definition of a positive impact on the quality of life of citizens leading to a sustainable development of territories. The involvement of territorial stakeholders and the exchange of interregional experiences will lead to the development of policy instruments for territorial development.

The activities are divided into three phases (Core phase, Follow-up phase and finally the Closure phase):

• the exchange of 30 Good Policy Practices oriented to the promotion of sustainable tourism these will be presented during the 6 Field Visits (one for each Partner Country)
• the development of 6 Holistic Surveys oriented to understand the state of the art of the tourism sector in the selected regions and the active policies in each partner country and identify policy gaps
• the definition of Policy Roadmaps with indications of the policies to be developed

The communication activity includes: the organisation of 6 Regional Dissemination Events (one for each partner country); the organisation of 2 Interregional Dissemination Events (in Finland and Spain); 2 Interregional workshops for knowledge tranferring (in France and Italy, at the Politecnico di Torino); the creation of a website and social pages including Facebook, LinkedIn and finally a YouTube channel.

SYSTOUR officially started with the online Kick-off meeting on 29 March 2023 from 9.30 to 11.30 a.m. to coordinate the first activities and organise the first Study visit to Hungary from 20 to 22 June 2023.

Silvia Barbero, the project's scientific coordinator, is enthusiastic about a balanced partnership at European level and adds 'the territorial diversities that these countries present will have to be enhanced because the richness of Europe lies in being able to enhance individual peculiarities by looking at common sustainability goals and sharing tools and experiences'.