On September 17-18, FRI participated in the 2nd Steering Committee of the TOURISMO project (Interreg Euro MED program), held in the city of Varna, Bulgaria.
The event was organized by the partner VEDA – Varna Economic Development Agency at the Cherno More Hotel. During the two-day meeting, the progress of the activities for the three Work Packages (WPs) of the project was presented:

• WP1 – Design and setup of solution deployment

• WP2 – Implementation and evaluation of testing

• WP3 – Exploitation, sustainability, and scaling up of project results

During the discussions on ongoing activities, it was highlighted that the 8 project pilot sites (Valencia Port, Valencia City, Golden Bay Beach, Florence City, Biševo Island, Rhodes City, Varna City, Limassol Port) have already started or will soon start purchasing sensors to begin monitoring tourist flows. These will include drones, thermal cameras, people-counting sensors, and more. All the data collected will be integrated into the Snap4City platform, which will combine them with other existing data from the 8 pilots (e.g., weather data, parking capacity, etc.) to provide more comprehensive insights that will help policymakers manage tourist flows in the pilot areas more effectively.

An index of a methodology to guide pilot actions was also presented, which will support the implementation of activities across the 8 sites. The methodology is currently under development and is led by FRI, with technical support from Unifi for data collection based on a consolidated data development life cycle approach and integration with the Snap4City platform.

This methodology will be developed during the second semester of the project (July-December 2024) and will serve as a practical guide not only for the pilots themselves but also for any site or area looking to create a pilot site. The document will provide valuable guidelines to replicate the experience.

For more information about the project: https://tourismo.interreg-euro-med.eu/