EUSAIR - Final Report

WORKSHOP ON TOURISM RECOVERY
The starting point of Mediterranean Coast and Macro-regional Strategies Week
2020 was a workshop on the recovery of tourism after the pandemic. The workshop,
which took place both virtually and in the Slovene coastal town of Izola,
with a strong fishing tradition, brought together 50 participants from all four
macro-regions, the Adriatic-Ionian, Danube, Alpine and Baltic, on 14 September.
The chosen topic was not accidental, since tourism as an industry has suffered
the most damage during the pandemic.
The challenge of the first workshop was how to connect all members of the four
macro-regions and adequately address the problems faced by tourism employees
in the field. All these regions offer many opportunities for the exchange
of good practice and experience. The EU has therefore recently proposed that
an evaluation of the cooperation efforts to revitalize tourism be carried out
by key tourism players in all four macro-regions.
The workshop was opened by the national coordinator, Andreja Jerina,
and was compered by Johan Magnusson, Representative of the European
Commission's Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy.
Ramune Genzbigelyte, with a lecture entitled Tourism in the EU on the road to
a sustainable recovery, Joanna Mouliou, who presented Interreg's investments
in tourism for the period 2021-2027, and Georgis Drakopoulos, who provided
an assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on tourism in the four Macro-regions
and how to recover with cooperation, shared their views on the current situation
in tourism and the possibilities for cooperation among the regions.
Representatives of the regions presented the situation in tourism together with the
opportunities and needs for this sector after the pandemic: Andrea Krabbe from
the Baltic and Irina Cozme from the Danube, while Francois Boissac reported
on the situation in the Alpine region, the Adriatic-Ionian region was represented
by Blanka Belošević. The highlight of the workshop was provided by Jean-Pierre
Halkin (Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy, EC) who announced
the creation of a special declaration on cooperation in tourism, with guidelines for
programming priorities for the development of sustainable tourism.
YOUTH, WATER AND EUSAIR
On 18 September, Piran and Koper also hosted one of the most interesting
accompanying events of Mediterranean Coast and Macro-regional Strategies
Week, entitled "Youth, Water and EUSAIR", which presented the action of the sea
and flood waters. The inhabitants of Slovene coastal towns are increasingly experiencing
the action of the sea and water as crisis flooding of the urban coastal zone.
Under the mentorship of geography teachers, primary school students from
two Slovene coastal towns, in cooperation with the Environmental Agency
of the Republic of Slovenia (ARSO), prepared a campaign to put up signs at
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