ENTRUST International Conference is a Success in Donegal!
The ENTRUST International Conference took place in the Inishowen Gateway Hotel on the 7th of February followed up by workshops and meetings on the 8th Feb. The ENTRUST Project is co-funded by Erasmus+ of the European Union and it is a training & development programme where people aged 50+ are being supported in bringing an idea for a sustainable tourism business from concept to commercialisation. The International Conference was the culmination of all the work and progress made by the project team over the past two years, showcasing the developed tools and project results which will support this cohort mentioned above. The consortium is made up of WestBIC (Ireland), Business Development Friesland (The Netherlands), Haaga-Helia University (Finland) and Biosphere & Aidlearn (Portugal).
The conference was attended by 65 people in total — 40 people in person and 25 people online from around Europe. Alison McGonagle, ENTRUST Project Europe Co-ordinator and Lead Partner of this project, hosted the event which featured many international speakers who are experts in their fields. Joan Crawford, Wild Atlantic Way Manager at Failte Ireland, welcomed both the international and local attendees while outlining the fantastic work carried out by Failte Ireland and their future growth plans. Patrício Azcarate, General Secretary at Responsible Tourism Institute (based in Spain), session titled ‘Sustainable Tourism and What is the Role of the Responsible Tourism Institute (RTI)?’ was well received by all. Following this Luigi Cabrini of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council presented on Global Standards for Sustainability Travel and Tourism. Luigi was the former Director of the UN World Tourism Organisation and his years of experience brought much food for thought for the audience.
Alison McGonagle and Tarja Romer-Paakkenen presented on Senior Entrepreneurship and ENTRUST which featured the project results consisting of the curriculum, course, platform and guidelines which are available to access via www.entrustproject.eu. The platform and other materials are free for learners and senior entrepreneurs to use which supports them with developing sustainable tourism business ideas.
Nuno Abranja, Director of the Tourism Department of Higher Institute of Lisbon and Tagus River (Portugal) presented on The Future of Tourism which covered areas like big data, AR, AI, VR in tourism. To close off the fantastic day, Mary Daly of Donegal Tourism, outlined Tourism Marketing in Practice and showcased the brilliant campaign by GoVisit Donegal launched back in November which features TikToker Eric Roberts. The ‘Donegal: It’s Not Yours, It’s Ours’ campaign results and future ambitions of the organisation sparked a lot of conversation amongst attendees on the day.
For more information on the project, visit the ENTRUST website — www.entrustproject.eu
