Cyprus is already one of the countries that is fully on board with the transition towards a sustainable and smart tourist destination, Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios has said.
The Minister was addressing a conference hosted by the Pafos Regional Board of Tourism, partner of the Desti-Smart Interreg Europe. The two day Desti/Smart Interreg Europe high-level dissemination event/final conference entitled ‘Sustainable Tourism Mobility towards Smart Destinations’, began on Thursday in the coastal town of Pafos with the participation of delegates from ten European countries.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism said that two years ago Cyprus launched its National Tourism Strategy 2020-2030.
The strategy was launchedin January 2020 shortly before the pandemic, but Perdios said that Cyprus dealt with the pandemic crisis and pushed on with its national strategy. He referred to the five pillars on which the strategy is based, with the goal to convert Cyprus by 2030 to a year round destination, a higher quality destination, a climate friendly destination, a digital and smart destination, and finally to create a destination where all residents can benefit from tourism.
This means, he explained, two things, firstly that we are not only focusing on beach resorts, we are focusing on developing the whole island as a destination and secondly making sure that local residents, small local communities are at the heart of our tourism.
We make sure that the locals are onboard with what we are doing and this is important, he said..
Finally, he congratulated Pafos for the actions and efforts it makes to establish itself as a year-round, smart and high quality climate friendly tourist destination.
DESTI-SMART is a project addressing challenges for efficient sustainable tourism and at the same time promotion of low-carbon economy through sustainable mobility and accessibility. The project partners, representing mass tourism destinations in South Europe, emerging tourism destinations, coastal, maritime and insular ones, form an interregional working scheme promoting interregional cooperation for sustainable mobility, accessibility and low-carbon responsible travel, through capitalisation of best practices, improvement of regional/local policy instruments and preparation of action plans towards their emergence and recognition as ‘Smart Destinations’.
Source: Cyprus News Agency