TraCEs - Transformative tourism across European Capital of Culture

The TraCEs project develops a thematic product of transformative tourism across European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) meant to boost tourism beyond and after the one-year event. The product is aimed to open a novel exploitation window for cultural heritage in past Capitals (herein represented by Rurh/Gelsenkirchen 2010, Košice 2013, San Sebastián 2016) whereas supporting present and future ECoC (Matera 2019 and Rijeka 2020) to invest in long-term tourism development and synergic thinking between tourism and CCIs.

The public-private partnership is made up of 8 partners, representing 6 countries (Italy, Croatia, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia and Spain) and different entity profiles, among CCI-based SMEs (Materahub – Coordinator, iambassador and Inmedia), tourism SMEs (Destination Makers and VIATGES EXPERIENCIES), public authorities (Municipality of Gelsenkirchen), training providers (University of Rijeka) and NGOs (Creative Industry Košice).

The University of Rijeka – Faculty of Economics and Business as a partner in the project improves the partnership with relevant skills in the academic and research fields, and will manage the three-fold planning (action plan, business plan, system of indicators).

This project has received funding from the EUROPEAN COMMISSION Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) COSME Programme (2014-2020) under grant agreement No 832077. The project has started on March 15th 2019, and will last until December 15th 2020. It is expected to involve at least 200 stakeholders, among representatives of the tourism industry and CCindustry, ECOCs and their  networks/associations, public players and their networks/associations (European, national, regional and local), training providers, Chambers of Commerce, DMOs and their networks/associations, international/national/sectorial organizations, associations and foundations, media, NGOs, and other facilitators at local, national and European level.