Huesca

The Huesca Living Lab benefits from the UNESCO capacity-building workshop on “Rethinking Cultural Tourism at your Destination”

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On 17 October 2022, within the framework of UNESCO’s capacity-building programme on sustainable cultural tourism destination management for the benefit of the SmartCulTour Living Labs. The Huesca LL met with Peter Debrine, Senior Consultant to UNESCO on Sustainable Tourism. The workshop was held at the “Diputación Provincial de Huesca”, with 15 participants from the Huesca tourism sector representing local tourism promotion agencies, government delegates, entrepreneurs and tourism and cultural operators.  

La farmacodopplerografía ecográfica de los vasos del pene está indicada para diagnosticar la disfunción eréctil. Durante el examen, se inyecta prostaglandina E1 en el pene no erecto, lo que se denomina sitio de ayuda «inyecciones intracavernosas».

The event opened with welcoming remarks by Alun Jones, Head of the Project Office of CIHEAM Zaragoza, and Costanza Fidelbo, Assistant Project Officer at the Culture unit of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (Venice, Italy).

Participants benefited from the comprehensive training on new approaches and strategies for sustainable tourism promotion. In particular, Peter Debrine provided insights into the Destination Management Approach and the integrated benefits deriving from its use, particularly when transversally embedded into cultural tourism interventions.

Participants co-designed innovative cultural tourism routes across the region through tailored storytelling, to boost local tourism promotion. As a result, the 3 groups presented different yet interconnected cultural tourism itineraries that illustrate the complexity of destination thinking as well as its potential positive impact.

It is evident from Post-COVID that tourists are continuously seeking authentic, sustainable experiences. Therefore, selecting and communicating the right messages are crucial to the strategic development of the entire sector and can help make a destination «desirable».

The workshop also supported participants in drafting a tourism promotion strategy inspired by the destination approach. This strategy incorporated unprecedented cultural narratives and innovative ways to communicate them through digital media and marketing.

Participants in the UNESCO capacity-building workshop have inspired and developed an entrepreneurial vision. Understanding how tourism can be more sustainable and strengthen ties between tourists, nature and local culture through their collective efforts.

We are grateful to Peter Debrine for such an enriching training opportunity. To UNESCO for tirelessly perpetuating its vital mission, including upholding sustainable forms of culture-based tourism and to all the participants.

SmartCulTour celebrates the Sustainable Gastronomy Day with a recipe book

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN General Assembly work to facilitate the observance of Sustainable Gastronomy Day, in collaboration with Member States, UN organizations and other international and regional bodies, as well as civil society, to observe the Day in raising public awareness of its contribution to sustainable development.

The UN General Assembly adopted on 21 December 2016 its resolution A/RES/71/246 and designated 18 June as an international observance, Sustainable Gastronomy Day.

The decision acknowledges gastronomy as a cultural expression related to the natural and cultural diversity of the world. As the COVID-19 pandemic is still unfolding across the globe, sustainable gastronomy – celebrating seasonal ingredients and producers, preserving wildlife as well as our culinary traditions – is today more relevant than ever.

As stated by the UNWTO, gastronomy is about much more than food. It reflects the culture, heritage, traditions and sense of community of different peoples. It is a way of promoting understanding among different cultures, and of bringing people and traditions closer together. Gastronomy tourism is also emerging as an important protector of cultural heritage, and the sector helps create opportunities, including jobs, most notably in rural destinations.

In SmartCulTour we wanted to pay a very special tribute to our local culinary traditions and have put together a booklet including recipes from the 6 Living Labs in the project: Huesca (Spain), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Scheldeland (Belgium), Split (Croatia), Utsjoki (Finland) and Vicenza (Italy).

Utjoski, Scheldeland and Huesca Living Labs share success stories of sustainable cultural tourism

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On 24 and 25 May, Utjoski’s living lab hosted one of the six exchanges programmed between the LLs of the SmartCulTour project. On this occasion, the Huesca and Scheldeland living lab managers and main stakeholders visited Finland to learn the methodologies and see the interventions made by their Finnish counterparts first hand. This was a great opportunity to share unique experiences to enrich and improve the quality of tourist services in the project’s regions.

On the first day, one of the main stakeholders of the Utsjoki living lab gave their visitors a guided tour to see the cultural and tourist attractions of the area and learn more details, in particular about the Sami culture that the Utsjoki LL is focusing on in their analysis. In the afternoon, the group tested the Placemaking Method for the first time in the project. The method uses a working dynamics approach to favour connexion between tourists and their surroundings and enhance the services they demand and the experiences they enjoy at their tourist destinations.

The next day was devoted to a working session with some of the LL stakeholders, giving the Spanish and Belgian teams the chance to learn more about the work in Utsjoki and exchange opinions with the Finnish participants. They all took part in a working meeting focused on improving tourist proposals previously designed for the territory. They also examined the major results of the tourist survey to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Utsjoki as a sustainable cultural tourist destination.

Scheldeland will be hosting the next exchange in June later this month, followed by another exchange in Huesca in October 2022.

Presentación oficial y tercera reunión de trabajo del Living Lab de Huesca

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El día 10 de noviembre de 2021 tuvo lugar la tercera sesión de trabajo del Living Lab de Huesca en el marco del proyecto europeo SmartCulTour. El objetivo principal de la sesión fue realizar la presentación oficial del proyecto en Huesca ya que, debido a la emergencia sanitaria, no hubo ocasión de realizarla cuando se lanzó el Living Lab. Para ello, se realizó una rueda de prensa en la Diputación Provincial de Huesca donde Raúl Compés, Director de CIHEAM Zaragoza, y Fernando Blasco, Gerente de TuHuesca, presentaron tanto el proyecto como las sinergias generadas entre ambas instituciones gracias al mismo.

Después de la rueda de prensa, se llevo a cabo en una bodega de la DO Somontano el resto de la jornada, la cual consistió en dos sesiones de trabajo destinadas a la identificacion de inicitaivas exitosas y escalables de turismo cultural sostenible en el territorio  que servirán como base de trabajo para configurar Huesca como undestino de turismo cultural sostenible de referencia. Asimismo, se realizó una sesión dinamizada por representantes de UNESCO donde se expusieron tanto las bases fundacionales de la entidad como las diferentes metodologías que emplean para la capacitación y transferencia de conocimientos a los agentes de turismo. Una vez elegido el itinerario más favorable para Huesca, que escogeran los y las participantes del laboratorio viviente de Huesca, UNESCO ofrecerá una formación personalizada a lo largo del proyecto.

La reunión contó con la participación de 22 personas representando a las diferentes comarcas y sus áreas de turismo, los centros de desarrollo rural, el sector empresarial y agroalimentario y la metodología empleada fue de carácter participativo haciendo uso de herramientas de facilitación de diseño y selección de iniciativas y toma de decisiones.

Segunda reunión de trabajo del Living Lab de Huesca

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El día 13 de mayo de 2021, tuvo lugar la segunda reunión de trabajo del Living Lab de Huesca. El objetivo principal de la sesión fue contextualizar el sector del turismo en Huesca por parte de los y las participantes del Living Lab y sentar las bases para el desarrollo de una estrategia de trabajo común para el fortalecimiento del sector en la provincia. La sesión contó con la participación de un total de 17 personas pertenecientes al  Living Lab y representando tanto a la administración pública como a la gestión territorial, el sector agroalimentario y el medioambiente, entre otros.

La metodología empleada fue de carácter participativo, haciendo uso de herramientas en línea que facilitaron la implementación de las diferentes dinámicas. De esta manera la agenda inicial que se planteó para la sesión fue:

  • 10.00: Introducción- Objetivos reunión y metodología
  • 10.05: Guía rápida para usar Miro
  • 10.15: Ronda de presentaciones
  • 10.35: Dinámica 1: Análisis DAFO (Debilidades, Amenazas, Fortalezas y Oportunidades) 30 minutos
  • 11.05: Dinámica 2: Identificación de necesidades y prioridades del LL. 30 minutos
  • 11.35: DESCANSO
  • 11.45: Dinámica 3: Compartiendo buenas prácticas.30 minutos
  • 12.15: Dinámica 4: Identificando oportunidades.30 minutos
  • 12.50: Cierre de la sesión – Conclusiones y siguientes pasos.

La sesión se caracterizó de principio a fin por una alta participación donde los conceptos de sostenibilidad, herramientas, aprendizaje, co-creacion surgieron como palabras clave con respecto a  las expectativas del Living Lab.

A lo largo de las siguientes dinámicas, se generaron debates y discusiones que pusieron en relieve la importancia de la creación de espacios de trabajo en red y cooperación como el que se está creando en el contexto del proyecto. Asímismo, quedó patente el gran interés en trabajar de forma conjunta con el resto de los Living Labs del proyecto para conocer e intercambiar inquietudes y metodologías en el sector del turismo.  El Living Lab de Huesca se caracteriza por una rica diversidad de recursos y atractivos turísticos a la par que se enfrenta a grandes retos como la despoblación rural, el cambio climático o el nuevo paradigma social originado por la actual crisis sanitaria.

Al final de la sesión se marcó la ruta a seguir y contenidos de las siguientes sesiones de trabajo a lo largo de 2021, donde se identificarán iniciativas de éxito, bien del propio territorio o bien de otros países, con el objetivo de que sirvan como referencia para impulsar el sector en Huesca.

Inception Meeting to present the Living Lab of Huesca

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On 4 March 2021 an online meeting was held to launch the Huesca Living Lab, one of the six Living Labs set up in Europe for the European project SmartCulTourfinanced by the European Commission in the framework of the H2020 Programme. The aim of the Living Labs is to encourage networking between stakeholders of the territory in the tourist sector to generate and identify good practices and innovative solutions for sustainable cultural tourism that can be exchanged with other European regions. To quote Raúl Compés, Director of CIHEAM Zaragoza: “This European project, in particular the Living Lab of Huesca, poses a good example of how to apply the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals to the land of Aragon”. Compés also pointed out that SmartCulTour will facilitate the exchange of innovative tourist strategies between different European countries and share examples of Huesca’s good practices in cultural tourism. The meeting was organized by CIHEAM Zaragoza, coordinator of the Living Lab, and was held online with 35 experts in sustainable cultural tourism and cultural and rural development. It presented the main objectives and the Living Lab concept, characterized by a participatory approach that enables stakeholders to play an active role in the development of their Living Labs.

Following the presentation, Fernando Blasco, manager of TuHuesca and direct collaborator with the SmartCulTour project, provided contextual information about the tourist sector in the province of Huesca, pointing out the challenges faced as a result of the current pandemic. The Living Lab of Utsjoki (Finland) also presented their work, giving an idea of the international component of SmartCulTour.


Each Living Lab is set up as a practical community made up of local experts and a wide range of sectors and stakeholders in the field of tourism. The Living Labs have been chosen based on criteria of geographical relevance and representativity of different models of sustainable tourism.  During the project, each Living Lab will implement, test and assess new forms of managing sustainable cultural tourism by identifying and replicating good practices in the sector, through serious games, arts-based methods, services and social design techniques to improve collaboration between the culture sector and the tourist industry to develop a capacity-building process. The other Living Labs are situated in Rotterdam (Holland), Scheldeland (Flanders, Belgium), Utsjoki (Lapland, Finland),  Split (Croatia) and Vicenza (Italy).