A press conference and kick-off meeting was held in Venice in the frame of DIGITOUR Project

A press conference and kick-off meeting of the Digitour consortium partners were held in Venice in the frame of DIGITOUR Project on February 25th, 2022. The ongoing activities of the project have been reported. Among the current key actions were:

• understanding the regional tourism contexts
• collecting user needs and requirements of SMEs in the tourism sector through customized online Questionnaires and direct interviews.

Before the Consortium meeting, a press conference was held in the head office of Venetian Cluster in Via Roma 291, 30038 Spinea (VE), in the presence of international cluster organisations, local and regional media, Gian Angelo Bellati, the president of Venetian Cluster and outlined the main objectives of DIGITOUR project “Boosting the tourism sector in Europe through digital tools and innovation (101038133)”, funded through The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), entrusted by the European Commission, under the COSME Programme COS-TOURINN-2020-3-04.

It was announced DIGITOUR expects to provide financial and non-financial support to at least 138 enterprises from 12 countries. During its 26-month lifetime, the DIGITOUR project will create an innovation-friendly and inclusive environment to build-up and skill-up European tourism SMEs to be ready to integrate innovative digital tools in line with their specific needs and to develop novel offers and business models with the support of experts.

DIGITOUR project will support tourism SMEs through two types of vouchers, targeting different levels of digital maturity. The two vouchers are geared towards the achievement of different objectives:

• The Up-skilling and Capacity Building Voucher is targeting individual SMEs willing to increase their skills and knowledge of digital tools and technologies to foster their competitiveness and scale-up. The aim is to improve digital skills and capacities of tourism SMEs and increase their knowledge of digital tools and technologies through training and individual advisory support.
• The Collaboration Innovation Voucher is targeting groups of SMEs wishing to cooperate on innovative projects at the national or transnational level. The aim is to boost innovative ideas for digital solutions by SMEs to improve their offer of products and services and their management, marketing, and promotion in novel and sustainable ways, adapting to the new challenges of the tourism sector, and to foster cross- sectoral and cross-border partnerships among tourism sector SMEs and stakeholders, and providers of innovative, digital, and smart solutions and new technologies. Through this voucher, transnational cooperative projects among SMEs will be encouraged.

Both vouchers will contribute to the achievement of the project overall objective of sustainably increasing the competitiveness and resilience of tourism SMEs in Europe to cope with the new challenges of the tourism sector by upskilling their digital knowledge, boosting innovative sustainable ideas and solutions, and fostering cross-border and cross sectoral partnerships.

It has been reported that the estimated time to launch the call for proposals is early April 2022.

Attending partners: Venetian Cluster, LONGARONE FIERE S.r.l., BIZGARDEN SRO, CLUSTER TURISMO SOSTENIBLE DE ARAGON, ASOCIACION INVESTIGACION, DESARROLLO E INNOVACION EN ARAGON, Cluster of Cultural Routes, Consulting Cluster Veritas ltd, Italienische Handelskammer Munchen-Stuttgart/Camera di Commercio Italo-Tedesca, AGENCE DE DEVELOPPEMENT ET D’INNOVATION AQUITAINE LIMOUSIN POITOU- CHARENTES.

Final decisions: 

The Project Management Handbook (D1.1) and the Final UN/UR Questionnaire (D2.2) have been approved by all partners and will be submitted on the Funding & Tenders Portal by March 03, 2022. 

The final decision about the B2B platform to be adopted will be taken by March 11, 2022. 

All partners are fully aware of the visibility guidelines and the communication and dissemination requirements to be ensured and respected throughout the project. 

DIGITOUR consortium represent organisations from the following European countries – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Serbia and Spain. Each partner will duly inform locally through their networks about the ongoing activities and mainly about the launch of the call for proposals.

For more information: segreteria@venetiancluster.eu, https://www.venetiancluster.eu/it/ and through the social media channel: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitour-cosme-project/?viewAsMember=true