Sustainable Tourism project holds final conferences in Georgia and Moldova

The EU-funded CIUDAD project Sustainable Tourism (SusTour) has recently held its final conferences in its partner countries: in Ungheni, Moldova, on 18 June, in Kutaisi, Georgia, on 29 June and in Venice, Italy, on 6 July.

Together with the presentation of the project's results, these meetings have led to Memorandums of Understanding for the exchange of good practices between Italian and Moldovan/Georgian partners. The full details of these and the cities involved are available in apress release from the project.

Sustainable Tourism - An integrated approach to the development of sustainable tourism products – is a two-year EU-funded project designed to develop tourism that is sustainable and environmentally friendly, i.e. finding a balance between the needs of the visitor, the environment and the host community for current as well as future generations.

The purpose of this project is to enable Georgia and Moldova to learn from the experiences and successes of their Italian partners in the North Adriatic area (Venice, in particular, has succeeded in remaining car and oil free since its foundation). Using a benchmarking approach, the Italian cities will focus on helping their ENPI partners to introduce tourist destination management methodologies.

CIUDAD runs from 2009 to 2012 and co-finances 21 local grant projects in the Neighbourhood's South and East. The projects reflect the overall objective of CIUDAD and in particular the following themes:
• Environmental Sustainability and Energy Efficiency
• Sustainable Economic development and reduction of social disparities and
• Good governance and sustainable urban development planning. (EU Neighbourhood Info Centre)