The SMITour project’s third partner meeting was held in Athens on March 5 and 6, hosted and organized by the Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA). Over the course of two days, participants engaged in a variety of technical discussions, public events, and site visits, fostering collaboration among all partners to create a more sustainable and innovative approach to industrial tourism in the Med Area.
The starting initiative on the agenda was the public workshop “Challenges and Opportunities of Industrial Tourism in Greece,” held at the Impact Hub within the city center on March 5. This event brought together a variety of stakeholders aimed at promoting the growth of industrial tourism in Greece, concentrating on policy strategies, solutions to key challenges, and tackling important issues related to audience engagement for small and medium enterprises, cultural institutions, tour operators, and policymakers.
The workshop was followed by the Innovation Camp session, organized into three working tables operating simultaneously and aimed at enhancing industrial tourism through targeted strategies.
The SMEs representatives focused on assessing common tourism strategy and collaborating businesses for visitor attraction meanwhile the museums and cultural institutions have evaluated current industrial tourism offerings, integrating SMART technologies to improve visitor experiences and develop guidelines to balance modernization with historical preservation. Contextually SMITour partners and local policymakers had crafted different suggestions and proposals aimed at defining public support and funding opportunities for industrial tourism.
After the presentation of the preliminary results at the conclusion of the Innovation Camp, the project partners joined a technical meeting providing updates on all ongoing activities, deliverables and achieving results as well as discussions on the planning of future phases.
In closing of day one, the study visits at the industrial museum and cultural centre Technopolis located in a former gas factory in Gazi area Greece, proved to be an interesting testimony of how industrial heritage can translate into cultural and social development opportunities.
The second day of the meeting-reserved for the partnership-was entirely devoted to study visits exploring the Lavrion district and its historical mining tradition which have had a prominent role in the social, economic and cultural development of Greece since ancient times.
Visits moved from Sounion National Park, discovering the washing plants of the old Lavrion mines in use between 1864 and the end of the 20th century to the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park, founded in the facility of the old French Mining Company of Lavrion aiming at facilitating and promoting innovation and culture in an area that has been the cradle of industrial development in Greece.
