17th EUROPEAN CULTURAL TOURISM NETWORK CONFERENCE 2024 IN DUBLIN - UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF ETAP, PAPHOS
the 17th annual conference of the European was held yesterday in Dublin with complete success European Cultural Tourism Network (ECTN).
This year the conference was dedicated to European cooperation for smart and sustainable tourism and was supported by the city of Dublin - European Capital of Smart Tourism 2024. ETAP Paphos, Chairs the European Cultural Tourism Network (European Cultural Tourism Network-ECTN) from 2020, through the Director of the Tourism Development Company and Paphos Region Promotion, Mr. Nasos Hatzigeorgiou.
Their presence at the conference as well as greetings were given by representatives of very important institutions/bodies of the European Union such as UN Tourism, European Travel Commission, ENAT (European Network for Accessible Tourism) Europa Nostra, Committee of the regions and others. The ECTN conference provided the opportunity to bring together a wide range of stakeholders and of experts from both the cultural and tourism sectors with 45 presentations from 19 countries. There were discussions and presentations on the latest trends in the field of culture heritage, smart and sustainable tourism, including innovation, digital transformation and the development of transnational cultural tourism products. At the same time, the European capitals of Smart Tourism, Paphos 2023 and Dublin 2024 participated in an open discussion with the audience, where they mentioned their examples, challenges and the path to even bigger steps towards smart tourism.Within the framework of the conference, the 10th destination/organization award ceremony was also organized in 5 categories where 17 pan-European good practices in the areas of Access to cultural heritage, Intangible cultural heritage, Digitization, Cross-border thematic routes, Coastal and marine heritage. The European Cultural Tourism Network (ECTN) Founded in 2009, is based in Brussels and is the only pan-European one in this field. It consists of more than 29 renowned institutions and universities from countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Croatia, Serbia etc. ETAP Paphos is an active member of the Network (ECTN) since 2012, held the position of Vice President from 2016 to 2020 and the Presidency from 2020 to 2024. www.culturaltourism-network.eu
