The SECreTour project addresses the call “Fostering socio-economic development and job creation in rural and remote areas through cultural tourism” under the 2023 Research and Innovation programme on cultural heritage and CCIs. This Research and Innovation Action (RIA) aims to enable sustainable social, cultural, and economic development through innovative, participatory, and collaborative approaches. These strategies empower local communities and stakeholders to become central agents of transformation, minimising negative impacts while replicating successful practices into new models and policies. SECreTour focuses on non-touristic heritage and underexplored areas, not for exploitation, but to promote community-based tourism where sustainability, engagement, and creativity are the true “secrets” of Europe’s Biocultural Heritage
The project is structured around five key objectives:
O1. Foster bottom-up local strategies for sustainable cultural tourism, focusing, on the one hand, on hidden potentials in remote, rural or deindustrialized areas usually not taken into account and, on the other hand, on the experience, interests, knowledge and participation of visitors. This includes the identification and testing of innovative approaches to strengthening local identity while at the same time facilitating a better alignment (meeting of minds) between the self-image of the local communities and the expectations and potential contributions of desirable tourist segments. It also includes using these potential resources as drivers of a sustainable economic local development from a social, cultural and environmental point of view and as channels of intercultural understanding.
O2. Develop specific, innovative and alternative business models based on cooperation and participatory approaches (i.e. mechanisms of payment-for-services and social contracts for redistribution of benefits and cooperation among stakeholders, local communities and economic sectors), promoting communities of practices and a positive impact on local communities, from a social, cultural, environmental and economic point of view. Implement cultural tourism based on living territories and communities, reducing tourism’s negative impact through consciousness-raising and strengthening local identities and socialties.
O3. Provide insights for the design of effective and sustainable cultural tourism policies. Make policy recommendations based on participatory models and collaborative practices, with the aim to stimulate new synergies among public and private stakeholders and new investments.
O4. Promote an inclusive and sustainable cultural and creative tourism to the widest possible range of actors interested in safeguarding both the needs of local communities and the heritage of European rural and remote areas. Special attention will be paid to increasing the involvement of younger people under 30, the ageing population, and minorities. The aim is to increase the motivation of younger people (particularly women) to stay and contribute to the development of Heritage Communities (HC) by offering new job opportunities and strengthening local identities, and a better recognition and engagement of older people’ status as valuable and respected HC members with vital knowledge, skills and experiences to pass on to coming generations. The latter directly connects to the EC’s support to the development of the Silver Economy, which in this case would involve both engaging older citizens locally and attracting tourists from ‘silver’ segments with a special interest in cultural experiences.
O5. Increase collaboration and networking across Europe focused on fair, creative and cultural tourism in rural and remote areas, with specific macro-regional and cross-border cooperation strategies to help the socioeconomic development based on multifunctionality, participation and redistribution of benefits.
