Do you really know what twin transition is?

Our fuTOURiSME project aims at promoting twin transition of European tourism SMEs, but do you really know what twin transition means?

Twin transition refers to two interrelated core aspects: digitalization and sustainability. Regarding sustainability is about guaranteeing a balance between the environment, social and economic dimensions of companies, according to the Triple Bottom Line theory proposed by John Elkinton in the late 1990s. It is then about reducing environmental impacts and mitigating them, ensuring the local communities’ well-being and creating prosperity for the long-term from an economic perspective. And what about digitalization? This term is related to the transversal integration of digital technologies in companies in order to improve efficiency, productivity and effectiveness.

We can easily see how both concepts are crucial for all types of companies, which of course involves SMEs, because they contribute to cost management and saving, risk mitigation, market opportunities and competitive advantages, access to green finance, talent attraction and long-term continuity and viability. However, COVID crisis acknowledged a low degree of both aspects among tourism SMEs.

Within this context, the European Union has developed several initiatives to foster green and digital transformation of Tourism SMEs in Member Countries, what we call a Twin Transition. Events, research (on digitalization & sustainability), and funding calls are good examples of this point.

Our project, fuTOURiSME, is one of the EU co-funded projects that aims at supporting SMEs in the sector of experiential tourism, overcome the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemics and emerge from the new socio-economic environment, through new business models, innovative services, skills & utilisation of twin transition (digital and sustainable) solutions.

At this point, we are preparing a compendium of needs and good practices on the fields of digitalization and sustainability by interviewing tourism SMEs from Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Germany. The idea is to be able to map the status quo that will guide the design of training and capacity building activities, as well as the definition of the Open Call for tourism SMEs. These planned activities will provide the experiential tourism SMEs with an opportunity to finally start the above-mentioned twin transition!

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