The whole learning programme is designed around the exigencies of the learners. To make the learning experience seamless and fruitful we have mobilised a team of academics and international experts that are well-versed in both sustainable tourism and mobility issues and e-learning practices, who are assisted by a professional team of instructional designers.
The module is managed by a group of international organisations, local authorities and associations with an established experience and an international reputation on sustainable tourism and learning.
To encourage the participation of active learners, the learning program is structured in five units of one week each, for a weekly engagement of 3h (1h video contents and 2h of reading time and exercises) for a total of 15h. Besides, participants are warmly encouraged to attend live conferences with guest speakers to discover real on-the-ground cases and to exchange with strategic stakeholders and foster peer-to-peer exchanges and networking amongst learners.
The learning programme will be structured as follows:
MODULE #1 _ What is sustainable tourism and overtourism
In this module, learners can absorb the theory through practice, learning about key publications, such as the origins of the concept Brundtland report (1987), more recent publications, implications for real destinations suffering from overtourism and learning about measures to be taken to prevent / address challenges to sustainability, including overtourism.
MODULE #2 _ International frameworks for sustainable tourism
In this module global frameworks are discussed: SDGs, European Green Deal, Glasgow Declaration, European Tourism Information System and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s work.
MODULE #3 _ Smart Tourism Destinations
The concept of tourism destinations, of smart cities and of smart tourism destinations will be introduced and challenged. The unit will also respond to the following questions: what makes our destination smart? How do we define that? how to measure whether the destination is advancing towards being smart?
MODULE #4 _ Funding the transition to a Sustainable Tourism model
How to make sure that the transition towards a more sustainable model of tourism is feasible and sustained by proper funding coming both from the public and private sector?
This unit will include a live conference or pre-recorded interview with an expert on public funding opportunities
MODULE #5 _ Sustainable mobility in tourist destinations
This module will focus on mobility presenting traditional and innovative practices towards sustainable mobility in tourism destinations:
_ What is sustainable mobility? What are the challenges of mobility in tourism destinations (e.g. seasonality, tourists with different mobility patterns which change over time, different characteristics of places, etc.), Mode choice in tourism destinations.
_ Innovative practices and solutions to promote sustainable mobility in tourist destinations, Provision of specific case studies that have been implemented around Europe (sources of information will be European H2020 and Interreg MED programmes), description of the case studies and presentation of their impact on sustainability.
_ The case of Mobility as a Service (MaaS): Description of the concept of MaaS, How MaaS can contribute to sustainability, application of MaaS in different areas, challenges of implementations, how MaaS can be implemented in tourism destinations, potential impacts of MaaS for tourism destinations.
_ Active mobility in tourism destinations: the case of bike-sharing, results from the implementation of bike-sharing schemes in tourism destinations in Greece.
_ Use of mobile apps to promote sustainable mobility in tourism destinations, Provide incentives to travellers when using sustainable transport modes (such as bike, walking, micromobility, etc.)
