Deadline: 26-Jul-23
The STAR GROWTH consortium has announced its call for proposals to enhance the sustainable growth of SMEs operating, in the rural tourism and ecotourism sectors.
Overall & Specific Objectives
- The overall objective of the action following the STAR GROWTH project is to enhance the sustainable growth of SMEs operating, in the rural tourism and ecotourism sectors in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Romania and Italy by providing technical and financial support, whilst boosting their awareness, development and capacity in the area of sustainability and digitization. More specifically, the action aims at:
- Supporting 90 rural tourism and ecotourism SMEs in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Romania and Italy in developing their skills and capacities in sustainable tourism, whilst creating sustainability strategies in line with the needs and priorities of their territory.
- Providing capacity building and technical assistance to the selected SMEs, by applying well known sustainability frameworks and tools (such as Environmental footprint methods, EMAS, EU Ecolabel, ISO 14001:2015, CSR, HCMI etc.);
- Fostering innovative practices and digitization oriented solutions, which can provide business destinations with enhanced social, economic and environmental awareness and responsibility;
- Building effective mechanisms for best practice exchange and dissemination of transferable tools and knowledge between the SMEs, also at a European level.
Priorities of the Action
- Through the STAR GROWTH Open Call, the STAR GROWTH project will support rural tourism and ecotourism SMEs (at least 90) by empowering and supporting their sustainable and /or digitalization transition. To this end, the STAR GROWTH Open Call aims to:
- Support SMEs by adopting sustainable and innovative practices through customised technical support activities and capacity building programs;
- Support SMEs through processes of
- preparation and / or application for sustainability / environmental certification,
- preparation and / or generation of Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) studies and Organization Environmental Footprint (OEF) studies,
- implementation of improvement measures following the recommendations of the PEF / OEF studies,
- developing of sustainability strategy plans;
- Support SMEs for training and capacity building activities in order to empower their staff towards innovation and sustainability;
- Support SMEs by increasing SMEs’ competitiveness via boosting innovation in sustainable and resilient tourism. The STAR GROWTH Open Call is open to both tourism SMEs lagging behind in terms of sustainability performance, digitalisation and innovative practices and solutions, and those that are more advanced to facilitate knowledge transfer and exchange of good practices among them and promote business cooperation.
Funding Information
- An SME could apply for a lump-sum grant of up to a maximum amount of 7,500.00 EUR out of which 750 EUR for Travel & Accommodation costs (for participating in STAR GROWTH events) and up to 6750 EUR for External Expertise & Services costs.
- Time frame
- The activities of the STAR GROWTH Open Call will start after the STAR GROWTH Action Plan Agreement (SG-APA) is signed, indicatively in October 2023.
- The activities proposed in the application form must be carried out within the framework of the STAR GROWTH project timeline, namely from the foreseen start, provisionally towards the end of 2023, to the foreseen end, in June 2025.
Principles
- In particular, the call will be carried out by respecting the following principles:
- Excellence: A high level of quality in the context of the topics and criteria specified in the call is required for proposals to be selected for funding;
- Transparency: Clear rules and procedures will be the basis for funding decisions to ensure transparency. All applicants will be provided with sufficient feedback regarding the evaluation outcome of their proposals, thereby promoting transparency throughout the funding process;
- Fairness and impartiality: Equal treatment is ensured for all proposals submitted to the call to maintain fairness and impartiality;
- Confidentially: All proposals and related data, knowledge and documents are treated in confidence;
- Efficiency and speed: Evaluation of proposals and award of the financial support will be as rapid as possible, commensurate with maintaining the quality of the evaluation, and respecting the legal framework.
Eligible Activities
- Preparation and application for sustainability / environmental certification (EU Ecolabel certification , EMAS registration , ISO 14001:20156 , CSR7 , HCMI8 etc.) with following foreseen outcomes: audit & data collection activities, action plans, reports, accreditation activities, dissemination activities & material;
- Preparation and / or generation of Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) studies and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) studies as well as implementation of improvement measures following the recommendations of the PEF / OEF studies with following foreseen outcomes: a study (PEF, OEF), dissemination activities & material, report on activities carried out;
- Development of sustainability strategy plans with following foreseen outcomes: report on the activities carried out, strategy plan documents;
- Training and capacity building activities in order to empower their staff towards innovation and sustainability, e.g. i) Upskilling and re-skilling of tourism SMEs’ staff on sustainability, digital innovation and data management issues, ii) knowledge transfer and cross-sectoral collaboration aimed at boosting innovation in sustainable and resilient tourism;
- Uptake of innovative and digitised, sustainable solutions that will increase SMEs’ digital awareness and competitiveness with following foreseen outcomes: development of specialised digital tools or upgrade of existing digital tools for increasing competitiveness and / or sustainability;
- Development of mechanisms to transparently share sustainability relevant data and information for use by consumers, national tourism offices and other tourism actors with following foreseen outcomes: public reports, dissemination activities & material, links to websites & photos.
Eligibility Criteria
- SMEs of the tourism sector can apply to receive financial support. Companies shall meet the following criteria to be eligible:
- Having economic activity related to the tourism sector in one of the following three categories:
- I5510 — Hotels and similar accommodation
- I5520 — Holiday and other short-stay accommodation
- I5530 — Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks
- NACE codes are given for indicative purposes alone; the SMEs must provide evidence that they are operating in one of those three categories;
- Having economic activity related to the tourism sector in one of the following three categories:
- Being established for at least one financial year, as proved through the Company Registration, which may be delivered in local or English language;
- Being a small- or medium-sized enterprise (SME), according to the EU Recommendation 20031;
- Being established in an EU Member State and operating in Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Italy or Romania;
- Operating in “predominantly rural regions” and “significantly rural regions / Intermediate”. In other words, SMEs operating in “predominantly urban regions” are not eligible for receiving funding in the form of grants. SMEs operating in “predominantly urban regions” will be added to Network list for inviting to SG events, as they could be possible candidates for participating based on their already expressed interest.
- Definition for Rural and Ecotourism SMEs for STAR GROWTH Open Call is based on Urban-Rural Typology, by NUTS 3 regions, where regions are classified into different types of regions according to the share of the population living in rural municipalities. There are three types of typologies, as listed:
- Predominantly rural regions: >50% of the population lives in rural municipalities or <50% of the population lives in urban municipalities;
- Significantly rural regions / intermediate: 15-50% of the population lives in rural municipalities or 50-85% of the population lives in urban municipalities;
- Predominantly urban regions: <15% of the population lives in rural municipalities or >85% of the population lives in urban municipalities.
For more information, visit Call for Proposals.