CROCUS | Cross-Border Cultural and Creative Tourism in Rural and Remote Areas

Summary
Rural and remote areas (RRA) are rich in cultural heritage, but many also suffer from socio-economic problems such as an ageing population, out-migration, and low incomes. Cultural and creative tourism (CCT) could help address these problems by creating sustainable jobs and investment, but three key challenges and associated knowledge gaps must be overcome: (1) place-specific business models that suit different types of cultural heritage and community needs must be created; (2) tourism development must be balanced and sustainable; (3) policies at different scales should support cooperation between RRA.

CROCUS addresses these key challenges by: (a) generating knowledge about which CCT business models are most appropriate for different types of heritage and rural areas; (b) creating eight cross-border living labs in which sustainable CCT business models will be prototyped (16 in total); (c) developing macro-regional and cross-border policy scenarios for each of the four EU macro-regions (Baltic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian, Alpine, and Danube); and (d) synthesising knowledge and experience from the project to create tools and resources that RRA across Europe and beyond can use to develop sustainable and inclusive CCT in the future.

CROCUS will achieve this through its ambitious multi-scalar research design, innovative cross-border living labs, and participatory processes of sustainable business model prototyping. The consortium brings together leading scholars and practitioners that have extensive experience with cross-border tourism development projects, stakeholder engagement, and policy analysis. It will be the first systematic study of different types of cross-border CCT cooperation in RRA. The impact of CROCUS will be to increase sustainable and inclusive CCT and cross-border cooperation in RRA across Europe, thus unleashing the potential of cultural heritage as a driver of sustainable innovation.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101132454
Start date: 01-04-2024
End date: 31-03-2027
Total budget - Public funding: 2 799 733,75 Euro - 2 799 733,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Rural and remote areas (RRA) are rich in cultural heritage, but many also suffer from socio-economic problems such as an ageing population, out-migration, and low incomes. Cultural and creative tourism (CCT) could help address these problems by creating sustainable jobs and investment, but three key challenges and associated knowledge gaps must be overcome: (1) place-specific business models that suit different types of cultural heritage and community needs must be created; (2) tourism development must be balanced and sustainable; (3) policies at different scales should support cooperation between RRA.

CROCUS addresses these key challenges by: (a) generating knowledge about which CCT business models are most appropriate for different types of heritage and rural areas; (b) creating eight cross-border living labs in which sustainable CCT business models will be prototyped (16 in total); (c) developing macro-regional and cross-border policy scenarios for each of the four EU macro-regions (Baltic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian, Alpine, and Danube); and (d) synthesising knowledge and experience from the project to create tools and resources that RRA across Europe and beyond can use to develop sustainable and inclusive CCT in the future.

CROCUS will achieve this through its ambitious multi-scalar research design, innovative cross-border living labs, and participatory processes of sustainable business model prototyping. The consortium brings together leading scholars and practitioners that have extensive experience with cross-border tourism development projects, stakeholder engagement, and policy analysis. It will be the first systematic study of different types of cross-border CCT cooperation in RRA. The impact of CROCUS will be to increase sustainable and inclusive CCT and cross-border cooperation in RRA across Europe, thus unleashing the potential of cultural heritage as a driver of sustainable innovation.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-05

Update Date

12-03-2024
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.2 Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
HORIZON.2.2 Culture, creativity and inclusive society
HORIZON.2.2.0 Cross-cutting call topics
HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01
HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-05 Fostering socio-economic development and job creation in rural and remote areas through cultural tourism
HORIZON.2.2.2 Cultural Heritage
HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01
HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-05 Fostering socio-economic development and job creation in rural and remote areas through cultural tourism