A presentation mad during a World Parks Congress event "Welcome Visitors: Making Tourism Work for Protected Areas and Sustainable Development: Part 1 – Critical Success Factors" that took place on 17 November 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Supported by the IUCN WCPA Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group and UNDP

1. Mediterranean Experience
of Eco-Tourism (MEET)
Luca Santarossa
Federparchi – Europarc Italy

2. Overview
Donor: European Programme “ENPI-CBC
Mediterranean Basin” 2007-2013
Budget: 5.000.000,00 €
Duration: Jan. 2013 – Oct. 2015
Location: Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy,
Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Spain,
Tunisia
Partnership: Federparchi – Europarc Italy
(Lead Partner), Latium and
Cataluña Regions, National Parks of
France, MedPAN, IUCN “Med” and
“ROWA” BOs, Royal Society for the
Conservation of Nature, Al- Shouf
Cedar Society

3. Goals
 to develop an integrated strategy
 in order to settle an Eco-Tourism
Development model for the
Mediterranean area
 that boosts a better seasonal
distribution of tourism flows,
 starting from the “European Charter for
Sustainable Tourism in Protected
Areas” (ECST) approach,
 through the establishment of a
network among supply-side
stakeholders (Natural Parks)

4. Expected results
1. Ecotourism Planning Guidelines
for the Mediterranean
2. MEET Catalogue of ecotourism
packages
3. MEET Network
4. Six local clusters of ecotourism-related
SMEs

5. The Network France:
- Cevennes
- Mercantour
- Port Cros
Spain:
- Cap de Creus
- Aiguamolls
- Montgrí
Tunisia:
- Ickheul
Italy:
- Monte Rufeno
- Sinis peninsula
- Dune Costiere
- Appennino
Lucano
Jordan:
- Dana
- Ajloun
- Mujib
Lebanon:
- Al Shouf
- Jabal Moussa
- Tyre Coast
Malta:
- Majjistral
Greece:
- Samaria
- Karpathos and
Saria

6. Solution components
a. A partnership of PA management-related
Institutions at regional level
b. A reliable participative planning tool
(European Charter for Sustainable
Tourism)
c. A marketing-oriented approach
d. Capitalization

7. Stop, breath and inspire…..
 Cooperation is better than competition
 Eco-tourism is more than nature-based tourism
 Coordination at regional level
 Improving capacities in tourism planning and management
 Increasing involvement of local communities and esp. of economic actors

8. How does it work?
§ Market survey
§ Capacity building strategy
§ Packages internal tests (autumn 2014,
spring 2015) and fam-trip (autumn 2015)
 http://www.medecotourism.org/
 http://www.meetnetwork.org/
 http://www.european-charter.org/home/