Tourism enterprises attend Challenging Mindsets event in Kilcar
SMEs from the tourism sector in South West Donegal with ambitions of transitioning in terms of sustainability and digitalisation attended the ST3ER Challenging Mindsets event run by WestBIC and Údarás na Gaeltachta. The event took place in gteic@Cill Charthaigh in Kilcar as part of Local Enterprise Week organised by Donegal Local Enterprise Office.
The event was part of a series of Challenging Mindsets events organised by the partners of the ST3ER project with the objective of raising awareness of the importance of twin transition to digital and green innovation. These sessions also stimulate networking, collaboration, exploration, knowledge exchange and joint strategy development.
The ST3ER project (Scaling Twin Transition in Tourism by harnessing the Experience Economy for greater Resilience) supports tourism and creative SMEs in developing digital and green innovation projects in 5 countries and strengthens their capacity to become more resilient and sustainable.
The 3-year project is coordinated by Údarás na Gaeltachta and co-funded by the European Union following a competitive call by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA).
In addition to Údarás na Gaeltachta as lead partner and coordinator, the ST3ER project has 5 other partners from five countries: WestBIC (Ireland), CEEI Báhia de Cádiz (Spain), Science and Technology Park of University of Porto (Portugal), Razvojni Center SRCA Slovenije (Slovenia) and Creative Business Network (Denmark).
At the Challenging Mindsets event in Kilcar, tourism enterprises and support agencies heard from Dermot Diamond, Professor Emeritus in Sensor Science at Dublin City University on the trends and opportunities in digitalisation and sustainability. His presentation was thought-provoking and challenged all businesses to examine their mindsets and to embrace digital and green transition as an opportunity. There were two case studies from established businesses from other sectors who shared their twin-transition experiences. Thomas Ellis and Áine Curran from Donegal Bees presented their award-winning enterprise which has recently won awards for their innovation both in sustainability and digital. They shared their expertise on recycling and other green initiatives as well as their use of digital to promote and develop their business. James Doherty from Sliabh Liag Distillers outlined the company’s digital and sustainability activities. They have achieved for the second year running Origin Green Gold status for their sustainability activity. He also described how they use sales data to identify hot spots for targeted training and tastings. It was noted that many of the challenges and solutions described by these non-tourism businesses can be replicated by tourism entities.
Eunan Cunningham from WestBIC described the ST3ER project which has a total budget of €3.2m, of which €1.9 (60%) will go directly to SMEs and other target stakeholders in the form of capacity building grants. He also outlined the forthcoming Open Calls for applications for individual SME Innovation projects and collaborative innovation projects under the ST3ER project in which tourism SMEs have the opportunity to apply with a project plan for digital / sustainable transition. He emphasised that the call is not yet open but will be opening shortly. He also outlined the call for mentors for the programme which is currently open. He also made reference to the Data2Sustain project which complements the ST3ER project with emphasis on Circular Economy and data driven innovation for SMEs.
Among the SMEs attending were: Sliabh Liag Camping, Sliabh Liag Visitor Experience Centre, Donegal Airport, Oideas Gael, Ireland by Bike, Sliabh Liag Boat Trips and Edel McBride Design. Údarás na Gaeltachta were represented by Micheal Mac Giolla Easbuig, Regional Manager and Gearóid Ó Smaoláin, Development Executive and also by Brenda Hegarty, Head of Enterprise from Donegal Local Enterprise Office. Mike Conroy from Data2Sustain was unable to attend and sent his apologies.
The ST3ER project aims to enhance the competitiveness of tourism SMEs and facilitate their green and digital transition through capacity building of tourism SMEs, fostering innovative solutions for sustainable tourism, delivering a 6-month accelerator with a focus of scaling SMEs, and promoting best practice exchanges, knowledge sharing and transfer.
ST3ER will put in place key ingredients required to equip the tourism orientated SMEs with a more responsive, resilient ecosystem, capable of growing and developing coordinated responses to many challenges the tourism industry is facing to support the achievement of the European goal. It will harness and multiply the power of new initiatives to create a collaboration driven innovation network — resulting in enhanced, more inter-connected, competitive, and sustainable tourism ecosystems. Further information is available at www.st3er.eu
