Gothenburg, Sweden, and Malaga, Spain, could be named European Capitals of Intelligent Tourism in 2020. The European Union Prize was awarded for the second time, the European Commission office said.
According to the information, 35 cities from 17 EU Member States participated in this year's competition, and the jury finally selected the two winners from the 10 most outstanding applications.
In addition to the city of Lyon in France, this year's award ceremony in Helsinki also saw four awards. Breda in the Netherlands received recognition for its accessibility, Slovenia's Ljubljana for digitization, Gothenburg in Sweden for sustainability, and Karlsruhe in Germany for achievements and related applications in the field of cultural heritage and creativity.
The purpose of the Tourism Initiative is to support sustainable and innovative tourism development and to disseminate the benefits of intelligent tourism to the widest possible audience. To be awarded the title, you will need to create a unique tourism program with a strong European dimension for the applicant cities, of which Helsinki and Lyon, Gothenburg and Malaga set the best example in the first year of application. The award-winning cities will receive funding to further develop their innovative programs and to raise awareness across the EU.
The European Capital of Smart Tourism program was initiated by socialist István Ujhelyi and former French MEP Renaud Muselier at the European Commission, with a budget of several hundred million euros.
In a statement to MTI, István Ujhelyi, co-chairman of the professional jury, emphasized that tourism deserves much more attention than at present. In his speech at the award ceremony, he pointed out the need to create a crisis fund in the sector in order to prevent thousands of jobs and families from going bankrupt, like Thomas Cook, a British travel group.
(Source: marmalade.co.uk; MTI | Image: pixabay.com)