Valencia – 13.09.2021. Fundación Valenciaport has started working on the European project TOURISMED PLUS, an initiative, financed by the Interreg MED Programme, which will continue the work developed in the previous project “TOURISMED” in which it was demonstrated that fishing tourism is an effective and replicable response to the threats related to the depletion of marine resources and the decline of the artisanal fishing sector.

TOURISMED demonstrated the premise that sustainable and experiential tourism represents a promising practice to be disseminated at the MED level, as it promotes a sustainable approach to maritime and coastal heritage, while raising tourists’ awareness of the marine ecosystem and culture of the regions involved.

In this new stage, the TOURISMED PLUS project will capitalise on the fishing tourism business model proposed in TOURISMED as a theoretical basis for the creation of draft public policies that will allow this type of tourism to be implemented in new territories in the Mediterranean.

With this objective, three of the TOURISMED partners: Fundación Valenciaport, PRISM and PETRA PATRIMONIA CORSICA, which played a key role in the quality of the pilot results, will lead the process of capitalisation and transfer to the new receiving territories (Molise, Montenegro and Bosnia), with which three public bodies are collaborating (Azienda Autonoma di Soggiorno e Turismo di Termoli, Municipality of Ulcinj and Municipality of Neum).

Moreover, the consortium is complemented by five associated stakeholders that will play a key role in the dissemination of the business model and in the support to local fisheries tourism policy makers: the Molise Region, the municipality of Fossacesia, the Corsica Tourism Agency, the Tourism Strategy Agency of the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean Fishing Tourism Association.

Direct and constant interaction between the policy makers involved, project partners and stakeholders will promote policy reform towards the development of sustainable fishing tourism based on the TOURISMED business model.

This approach will lead to the following results: proposals for the reformulation of policies related to fishing tourism in the new territories; memoranda of understanding with policy makers in the receiving territories; capacity building of policy makers for the implementation of the TOURISMED business model in local/regional policies; and the creation of a permanent policy forum on fishing tourism.