European Commission - Enterprise and Industry
Social tourism allows as many people as possible to go on holiday and therefore, significantly aids mobility. Moreover, it can also contribute to combat seasonality, strengthen the notion of European citizenship and to promote regional development besides facilitating the development of specific local economies. Social tourism proves that economic and employment opportunities, key goals within the Lisbon strategy, can indeed be generated by increasing tourism accessibility for additional strata of the European population. By facilitating tourism access in European Destinations for society groups for which going on holiday represents a difficult or even impossible undertaking, social tourism strengthens the tourism industry's revenue generation potential. It enables off-season tourism to be developed, particularly in regions where tourism is well developed but highly seasonal, whilst giving the opportunity to relatively unknown, small or emerging destinations to promote their offer amongst a wider spectrum of the European population. Accordingly, social tourism encourages the creation of longer-lasting employment opportunities in the tourism sector by making it possible to extend such jobs beyond the respective peak season.
Currently the Calypso program has initiated its Preparatory actions with its first call for proposals being awarded to 3 projects which include:
- Portugal
- Finland
- Spain
- Poland
- France
- Italy
- Malta
These particular projects are to work with the following prospects:
- To Support Public Authorities in Setting Up, Developing and/or Strengthening CALYPSO office infrastructures in their country.
- To Provide Networking Opportunities Enhancing Collaboration between Public Authorities with the ultimate aim of promoting low season exchanges in any one or more of the four CALYPSO target groups.
- To conduct relevant studies that could improve the knowledge base and eventually facilitate low season exchanges.