ECO-CRUISING FU_TOUR

2026-07-22

The tourism sector requires greater innovation and diversification to remain sustainable, competitive and profitable over time and to provide qualified employment. With specific reference to the coastal and maritime tourism sector, cruise tourism is one of the most promising vertical, mobilising million of visitors, but still lagging behind in the eco-sustainability approach. The sector is characterised by bringing large numbers of people to concentrated areas of destinations for brief periods, thus multiplying and concentrating the impacts. Destinations need adequate infrastructure to host and supply large cruise ships and their passengers when they dock. Just as cruise tourism is a small slice of global tourism but a large or primary source of arrivals for specific destinations, its impacts on a specific city, attraction, or natural or cultural resource are intensified, as is the risk of irreparable damage. Therefore developing a new generation of cruise tourism to preserve coastal and maritime tourism is key. The ECO-CRUISING FU_TOUR project aims to boost managerial, innovative, blue, green and digital skills of tourism WestMed SMEs but ultimately public and private stakeholders in charge of the promotion of EU and West European coastal and maritime destinations through specialised capacity building programme, knowledge and tech transfer, preparing the transfer of good practices and multiplying the results. The goal is to exploit the green potential of WestMed tourism SMEs and cross-border cooperation to unlock new business opportunities around the new eco-cruise tourism sector. To this specific objective, the project will design eco-smart cruise packages targeting Millennials and Gen Z; the objective is to offer innovative route and solutions paving the pathway towards Net-Zero for Cruise and Coastal Areas by introducing a brand new experience for these target groups to cruising, combining smart (digital) and eco-sustainable offering.

Italy

2025-10-15