EUROPEAN CULTURAL TOURISM NETWORK - HANDOVER OF THE PRESIDENCY FROM 'PAFOS'
Within the framework of the annual General Assembly of the Network, which was recently held in Dublin, the network’s former President for two consecutive terms, Nasos Hadjigeorgiou, representative of the Pafos Regional Board of Tourism (PRBT), handed over the presidency to the tourism association of the Sibiu province of Romania.
The Pafos Regional Board of Tourism(PRBT) has been an active member of the European Cultural Tourism Network (ECTN) based in Brussels since 2012 and PRBT held the position of Vice President from 2016 to 2020 and the Presidency from 2020 to 2024.
The network is the only pan-European, in this field and consists of more than 40 renowned institutions and universities from countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Croatia, Ireland, the Netherlands, etc.
After the Annual General Assembly of the Network , a new Board of Directors has been elected for 2025-2026 which was formed in a body as follows:
-President, Simina Manea-Sibiu County Tourism Association-Romania
-Vice-President, Marta Coutada - Inter-Community CIM Alto Minho-Portugal
-Treasurer/Secretary, Manos Vougioukas- Argonautica network-Greece
Members
-Nasos Hadjigeorgiou -Pafos Regional Board of Tourism-Cyprus ( ex president)
-Jordi Tresserras-University of Barcelona, Catalonia-Spain,
-Franziska Stenzel-Experience Bremerhaven-Germany
-Barry Rogers-Dublin City Council-Ireland
-Jessika Weber-Breda University of Applied Sciences-Netherlands
-Amra Jaganjac-Tuzla Tourism Board, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The network, as stated in the announcement, has as its main concern to bring together tourism and culture professionals and partners from various regions of Europe, to exchange experiences and information on best practices in order to develop new approaches and innovations.
The successes of the Network for the last four years include, among others:
-The creation of several corporate projects with co-financing from the European Union and participation in the European Interreg programs, CHRISTA (Cultural Tourism) CULTRinG (cultural routes, Cult-CreTE (creative tourism), DESTI-SMART (smart tourism) ReΙnΗerit (management and digital promotion of cultural heritage), Erasmus Foodbiz (gastronomic tourism), SMP INSPIRES (resilient tourism).
-The annual conferences 2020-2024. With participation from the European Commission, European Parliament, Committee of the Regions, Europa Nostra, European Travel Commission, Iter Vitis & Phoenicians Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, European Association of Archaeologists, Interpret Europe, ICOMOS, Europeana, ETOA, ENAT, UNESCO & UN Tourism (UNWTO).
-The International 'Sustainable Cultural Tourism Destination' awards and their upgrade in recent years. The annual ECTN awards from the 2018 are held in collaboration with Europa Nostra European Travel Commission.
-Supporting Pafos as the European Capital of Smart Tourism for 2023 and participating in the European Capital of Smart Tourism 2024 in Dublin, Ireland.
