European Youth Eco Tourism Initiative

Background Today, young people in both rural and urban areas are keen to regain control of their lives by developing their own professional projects in their own region. The challenges are many: for rural areas to combat desertification and an aging population. The need is twofold: to promote economic opportunities for young people in order to keep them locally, and to attract people who contribute to the local economy; to improve resilience in rural areas: farms are diversified entities, and tourism is emerging as a major opportunity, particularly in times of recession, when consumers are reducing their spending and their ecological footprint to take vacations closer to home. For the tourism sector: The EU is the world leader in the tourism sector. In 2017, the total contribution of travel and tourism to EU GDP was 10.4%, employing over 27 million people. Nevertheless, the competitiveness of the tourism sector is closely linked to its sustainability, as the quality of tourist destinations is strongly influenced by their natural and cultural environment and their integration into a local community. Objectives Objectives: Enable young people to travel differently, train differently (face-to-face hybrid training, masterclasses and online mentoring) and rethink our relationship with our natural environment. YETI offers young people the opportunity to take concrete action to propose new policies to decision-makers. This opportunity is all the more relevant as it is offered on a European scale. Each partner consolidates its specificity and expertise in a fast-developing sector: ecotourism. Defismed, IDEI, LABA, Vismednet: formal and informal training for young people. BIA and Defismed: in eco-tourism. All partners are developing cross-functional projects to support young people. YETI consolidates its action, supported by the active complementarity of the partners; they perpetuate their cooperation thanks to the creation of the YETI network. The network's global visibility is strengthened, and the partners develop their relationships in Europe. In order to reach out to young Europeans, the project is aimed at youth organizations that support young people in their entrepreneurial projects in the tourism and environmental sectors. Implementation We have implemented several activities to achieve these objectives: 1. Structuring and developing an inclusive network of young students, European entrepreneurs and youth stakeholders, dedicated to the promotion and development of ecotourism projects based on the identification of best practices at European level (best practices guide). 2. Beach and share tools and resources to support entrepreneurs step by step in their entrepreneurial project (toolbox). 3. Designing and sharing relevant and innovative distance learning tools for youth workers (training courses). 4. set up a Europe-wide entrepreneurial competition with a 1,000-euro prize to support initiatives 5. set up and design test training courses to train young entrepreneurs and youth workers on a peer-to-peer and mentoring basis 6. Organization of dissemination events for players in the sector and public decision-makers at regional events to disseminate results, expand the network and exchange views on themes (dissemination events). Achievements 1 platform gathering all results: https://european-yeti.eu/ IO1 : 1 downloadable 80-page multimedia PDF guide to some thirty best practices 10 video portraits of the most relevant and inspiring initiatives identified in each country >100 initiatives listed on the European Yeti platform: 1 European Yeti prize with 30 participants and 3 winners (prize of 1,000 euros for the first two and training courses for the first 3) IO2: 1 downloadable toolbox / interactive PDF format, tutorials and exercises, resources Adapted to 5 countries with personalised profiles for Malta, Ireland, Sweden, Romania and France. IO3:1 training course with 6 modules with over 270 pages of interactive, visual and multimedia content for all youth educators who want to support young people - in downloadable PDF format in 4 languages (English, French, Romanian, Swedish) 10 video masterclasses (approx. 15 minutes each) by industry experts 150 minutes in total All results are translated into 4 languages: French, English, Romanian and Swedish. We produced 2 user-testing activities & 5 events involving youth educators, students, young entrepreneurs and industry stakeholders.