Building the Mediterranean ecotourism destination: the "MEET" project

Mediterranean region hosts a many hotspots for ecotourism activities. Many of them are within Natural Protected Areas. MEET project (funded in 2013 by European Programme ENPI-MED and now closed) set up a Network of 25 Parks... [ view full abstract ]

Mediterranean region hosts a many hotspots for ecotourism activities. Many of them are within Natural Protected Areas. MEET project (funded in 2013 by European Programme ENPI-MED and now closed) set up a Network of 25 Parks from 8 Mediterranean countries (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Malta, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia) and each Park designed and tested an ecotourism package of at least 3 days, following the criteria set during the project. Now the former project partnership has created a DMO (Destination Management Organization) to promote and sell the Catalogue of these packages and to enlarge the MEET network and to increase the number of packages, The mid term goal is to have a huge offer of ecotourism packages (covering all the 22 Mediterranean countries) and so to create the "Mediterranean Ecotoursim Destination". One pillar of such process is that ecotourism is developed as a business (and therefore the involvement of local and international Tour Operators) but it is supervised by Parks managing bodies, in order to assure the respect of ecotourism principles and to contribute to the conservation of natural and cultural assets.