By Bejay Browne.
The head of the Paphos regional board of tourism has been elected as the President of the European Cultural Tourism Network – (ECTN) which is based in Brussels.
The entity is the only pan-European network of destinations, authorities, NGOs and research institutes for sustainable Cultural Tourism development and promotion across Europe.
“I am very proud and honoured to be elected for the next two years (2021-2022) as the president of the ECTN. The only pan European network on sustainable cultural tourism. We will work hard, together with the board members to enlarge the network and establish even more ECTN’s across Europe, and of course focus on our mission to exchange experience and information on best practice and to develop new approaches and innovations,” Nasos Hadjigeorgiou told the Paphos Post.
ECTN aims to achieve a high level of collaboration between members in the area of cultural tourism and to establish a close cooperation with the institutions of the European Union and other international organisations, networks and public institutions worldwide.
The Paphos tourism board has been an active member of ECTN since 2012 and has held the position of vice president since 2016.
The network is the only pan-European in this field and consists of more than 25 renowned institutions and universities from countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Croatia, Serbia and more.
Hadjigeorgiou as President, and representing the Paphos tourism board, is joined by Vice President, Simina Manea-Sibiu of the County Tourism Association-Romania and the Treasurer / Secretary, is Manos Vougioukas, of the Argonautica network, Greece.
Other members include representatives from, Latvia, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Croatia.
The network’s main aim is to bring together professionals and partners of tourism and culture from different parts of Europe, to exchange experiences and information on best practices in order to develop new approaches and innovations.
Other successes include the International Awards’ Destination of Sustainable Cultural Tourism and their upgrade in recent years. From 2018 the awards have been held in collaboration with the Europa Nostra and European Travel Commission.
In 2019 and 2020 there was also collaboration with Iter Vitis cultural route of the Council of Europe for wine tourism.
