Outcomes of the Webinar on Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: from design to implementation - the experience of CEETO project
May 8th 2020, online - With 260 participants, the webinar was a great opportunity for Protected Area managers and policy makers to get to know the CEETO tools for developing Sustainable Tourism and learn from specific examples on the ground.
This webinar jointly organised between EUROPARC Federation and CEETO project was the second initiative of this kind hosted during the implementation of the project, which will close at the end of May 2020. In this ocassion, 260 participants gathered online at 11:00h CET on Friday 8th of May to learn more about the CEETO project and the outcomes that have been build from the experience of different Protected Areas and Sustainable Tourism experts during the three years of its existence.
Participants at the webinar - photo by EUROPARC Federation
All the webinar presentations and the webinar recording are available here.
Summary of the webinar
The webinar started with an overview of CEETO project presented by Mauro Generali, Technical and Communication Manager at Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy (Lead Partner of cEETO project) and continued with two case studies that portrayed two different levels of action within Sustainable Tourism development.
On the one hand, inside a political context, Robert Smrekar, Director of the Public Institute Landscape Park Strunjan, Slovenia, presented "The Importance of Buffer Zones: Working with Public Authorities and Privates". This presentation was a review of the lessons learned with the implementation of Sustainable Tourism Strategies at Strunjan Landscape Park carried out in the framework of CEETO project, stressing the importance of developing a common strategy, the personal relationships and the necessity of engaging local authorities.
On the other hand, following a more technical approach, Rudy Melli – CEO and Co-founder at Vision-e Srl, Italy, Head of the VCA system, presented the case study "Nirano’s Mud Volcanoes: Identifying visitor's profile with artificial intelligence" . In his presentation, Rudy explained the deployment of the Monitoring Tool NEMOS – Nature Reserve Monitoring System in Nirano's Mud Volcanoes Nature Reserve, Italy. This system was set in the framework of CEETO project and uses Artificial Intelligence to analyse visitor flows and behaviours in order to plan and implement management decision for tourism.
Sample of the NEMOS system recording - extracted from Rudy Melli's presentation
To end with, Ana Krvarić, CEETO Project Coordinator at WWF Adria, Croatia and Tina Primožic, CEETO Manager at Regionale development center Koper, Slovenia, presented two tools that have been developed based on the experiences of the project:
- The CEETO Manual of Sustainable Tourism Governance for Protected Area Managers: an operational document that aims to improve the managing capacities of Protected Area managers and local stakeholders and implement an actual sustainable use of nature and its assets
- The CEETO Network: an open network and platform conformed by practitioners in nature conservation and Sustainable Tourism in Europe created in order to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas and innovations on this matter.
- The CEETO Guidelines for developing a Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: a tool to support policy makers at international, national and regional level in the process of shaping the tourism planning and management within and around Protected Areas.
Both the CEETO Manual and Guidelines will be soon available at CEETO website and at the CEETO Network. Stay tuned!
