Last September, the Chair and Founder of the Malta Tourism Society, a registered VO whose principal scope is to research and study the importance of bridging the gap between research and the practical industry, represented the Society and Malta at the meeting for the Smart Tourism Destinations launch in Brussels in September 2022.
Dr. Julian Zarb is a researcher, local tourism planning consultant, and academic, and during the meeting, he emphasized the importance of everyone working together to ensure this pilot project was a success but also that there would be continuity that will lead to a sustainable and quality activity.
The Smart Tourism Destinations Project is an initiative funded by the European Commission – DG GROW to support EU destinations implementing data-driven approaches to make tourism more sustainable and accessible.
With the help of tourism experts including private sectors practitioners and academic researchers, destinations will learn how to improve tourism management using data and technological innovation.
This objective will be achieved through a capacity building journey made by different learning and networking activities, such as webinars, coaching, workshops, peer learning, and matchmaking events. The activities offered at the selected destinations – webinars, materials and other tools – will also be partly available to the external public so as to create a wide community of practice for exchanging methods and knowledge within the EU tourism sector.
The Malta Tourism Society will be presenting its community-based project as part of the Smart Tourism Destination portfolio. The project, Developing Tourism in Malta and Gozo, through its People and Culture – Meet the Locals, has already been introduced to six localities in Malta, and it is hoped this can extend to more localities as part of the development of a quality destination project.
