(18 October 2016) – The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) has published an interesting ‘Study on specific challenges for a sustainable development of coastal and maritime tourism in Europe’.
Coastal and island tourism in Europe is affected by a number of exogenous trends such as growing global tourism and the emergence of new market segments, changes in demand patterns, ageing society, an increased awareness and search for sustainability and quality, geopolitical instability in parts of the world, and a growing role of ICT as a tool for information access and benchmarking.
Against these trends, challenges to be addressed include seasonality of demand and dependency on specific groups of tourists, the limited carrying capacity of facilities and environment, low added value generated in parts of the sector, the need for renewed marketing approaches and the upgrading of outdated infrastructures, for which however investment capacity is limited, but also the limited economic and social returns for local communities.