Overview

Objectives

The general objective of the call is to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs in the tourism sector, by building capacity of SMEs to successfully carry out the twin green and digital transition, and to boost innovation, resilience, sustainability and quality along the tourism value chain. This should be done by fostering innovative solutions for sustainable tourism; supporting SMEs, so that these can plan and carry out improvements that enhance sustainable, digital and inclusive tourism; adopting existing or building new mechanisms for the exchange of best practices to enhance knowledge transfer.

Activities/actions supported

Applicants must ensure that the following three main types of activities are included in their proposals:

1. compiling a list or compendium of lessons learnt and/or best practices concerning the needs of SMEs;
2. providing capacity building to SMEs, including through training and knowledge transfer activities;
3. providing capacity building to local tourism ecosystems. 

Anticipated outcomes

Expected outcomes include the following: enhanced resilience and competitiveness of tourism SMEs; enhanced transnational cooperation of public and private stakeholders in tourism; innovative ways to provide tourism services for different target audiences; increased cooperation on innovation between tourism SMEs as well as between SMEs and incubators, accelerators and knowledge providers; enhanced interest of tourism SMEs to invest in business practices geared towards sustainability increasing practices; improved transnational and cross-border cooperation, knowledge transfer and peer learning; support to recovery of the tourism ecosystem from COVID-19 crisis by providing best practices for recovery investment.

Institution providing the funding

EUROPEAN INNOVATION COUNCIL AND SMEs EXECUTIVE AGENCY (EISMEA)

Size of funding

€20.5 million

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

Applicants must be legal entities established in an eligible country (i.e., EU Member States; EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme). Moreover, proposals must be submitted by a trans-national consortium, which includes a minimum 5 and a maximum of 8 entities from minimum 5 different eligible countries. Of these, minimum 2 have to be business support organisations  from 2 different eligible countries; minimum 1 has to be a destination management organisation; at least 1 has to be alegal entity with proven capacity of knowledge transfer to, and training of SMEs, such as a university, training centre or research centre; and at least 1 has to be legal entity with proven specialized competence in communication and dissemination.

Overview of award criteria

The proposals will have to follow the standard submission and evaluation procedure (one-stage submission + one-step evaluation).  Proposals will first be checked for formal requirements (admissibility, and eligibility). Proposals found admissible and eligible will be evaluated  against the operational capacity and award criteria and then ranked according to their scores. The operational award criteria include the following: relevance (30 points), quality of the project design and implementation (30 points), quality of the project team (30 points) and impact (10 points). 

For further details on eligibility and award criteria, please see the link to the funding opportunity below.

Procedures

Application procedures

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the European Commission's Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System, and using the following forms:

• Application Form Part A containing administrative information about the participants and the budget for the project. 
• Application Form Part B containing the technical description of the project.

Both Forms can be found in the link to the funding opportunity below. 

Application support available

Further support can be found in the EU Funding & Tenders Online Manual at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/om_en.pdf

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info