Smart Social Economy Model in Tourism (Long Distance Trails)
Open
Status as published by the data source.
Expected Outcome:
Objectives
This pilot project seeks to integrate social economy principles into sustainable tourism and foster transnational cooperation among local communities along one or more selected long trails or specific portion of one or several long trails crossing EU Member States.
The objective is to promote socio-economic and territorial development through a bottom-up approach, using existing long-distance tourist trails as test cases for sustainable tourism, notably in rural areas.
The project targets transnational consortia to explore and test sustainable tourism models along these trails, based on social economy approaches, creating blueprints for possible replication across other EU regions.
This initiative complements other existing EU efforts by leveraging local capacities to foster smart social economy models for sustainable rural development.
Expected impact
The call is expected to:
• Explore and test ideas on how to better integrate social economy principles into sustainable tourism;
• Facilitate transnational cooperation of local communities and cross-border transfer of good practices;
• Increase awareness about the potential of the social economy and the social enterprises in the sector of tourism;
• Increase capacity of local authorities in using social economy to promote sustainable tourism.Scope:
In the context of this call, the Commission intends to support transnational partnerships. The testing dimension, evaluation and scaling, will be fundamental aspects of the expected proposals. The priority is to set up community-led, sustainable tourism models grounded in social economy principles or bring them at scale marketable practices.
The call for proposals will provide support to those local actors (including local authorities, DMOs and other tourism stakeholders) and social economy entities currently delivering services or goods, or those willing to design and develop new services or goods, allowing to reach the objectives of the call.
To ensure the initiative delivers durable, inclusive benefits, all the following themes need careful consideration:
• Encourage local communities to identify challenges linked to long trails, codesign and take ownership of solutions and support initiatives that integrate cultural heritage and rural development.
• Consider the concrete needs of social economy entities, how they align with an evolving touristic demand and embed them in relevant long-term tourism strategies along the trail.
• Consider the perceptions of local communities regarding tourism impacts on the lives and economic opportunities of residents, to ensure sustainable and effective socio-economic returns, ensuring long-term benefits for both residents and visitors.
• Look for synergies between local authorities (including DMOs) and social economy entities for environmental stewardship, data sharing, digital innovation, and skills development.
• Promote social inclusion, including through entrepreneurship among under represented groups such as senior, women and youth.
• Focus on local value chains that retain economic benefits within rural communities, fostering inclusive growth.
- Status
- Open
- Deadline
- (time not stated)
- Opens
- Published
- Total budget
- €1,500,000
- Grant range
- €200,000 – €1,500,000
- Country
- European Union (EU-wide)
- Programme
- Pilot Projects and Preparation Actions (PPPA)
- Official page
- Open at the source portal
Other calls under Pilot Projects and Preparation Actions (PPPA)
- Integrated Surveillance mechanism: Regional Cable hubs
- Youth-Driven Social Media Design: Safe, Inclusive, and Publicly-Owned Social Media
- Industrial Readiness for Affordable Ka-band User Terminals
All calls under this programme
Similar opportunities
- Rethinking sustainable competitiveness beyond traditional perspectives: role and contribution of the Social Economy
- Enhancing Mobility for All: affordable, reliable, and accessible multimodal transport for inclusive rural and urban connectivity – Societal Readiness pilot
- New sustainable business and production models for farmers and rural communities
- Systemic circular solutions for a sustainable tourism
- Circular bioeconomy start-up villages
- Demonstrating the fair and just transition from GHG-intensive economies facing challenges towards circular bioeconomy model regions
Where this came from
- Source document
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/data/topicDetails/pppa-2026-social-economy-tourism.json
- Document fingerprint
ce2824670213f180(SHA-256, first 16 hex characters)- Retrieved
- First recorded here
What has changed
- url first recorded as https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/pppa-2026-social-economy-tourism on
- currency first recorded as EUR on
- amount_max first recorded as 1500000.00 on
- amount_min first recorded as 200000.00 on
- budget_total first recorded as 1500000.00 on
- deadline first recorded as 2026-08-26 on
- opens_on first recorded as 2026-05-28 on
- published_on first recorded as 2026-05-26 on
- status_basis first recorded as source_status on
- status first recorded as open on
- title first recorded as Smart Social Economy Model in Tourism (Long Distance Trails) on
Data source
© European Union, 2026. Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU — CC BY 4.0.
Retrieved from the source on .
The source last updated this document on Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:00:14 GMT.
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