The European Commission awards nEUlakes, the lakes’ network led by Visit Lake Iseo

The nEUlakes network of European lakes, led by Visit Lake Iseo, has been awarded a European tender worth 310 thousand euros.

The ENSEMBLE project (Europe as a Nation for Sustainability, Equality, Mobility, Better Life and Enivronment), which includes a series of initiatives aimed at developing sustainable and accessible tourism and European awareness, has won the Network of Towns call of the CERV program (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values), resulting among the best proposals. Of the 109 projects presented, only 30 were accepted.

The project consortium is made up of five partners: Visit lake Iseo as leading partner (Association between the 23 municipalities of Lake Iseo and the Provinces of Brescia and Bergamo), and the municipalities of Sankt Gilgen (Austria, on Wolfgangsee), Imatra (Finland, on Lake Saimaa), Manzanares El Real (Spain, on Lake Santillana) and Bohinj (Slovenia, on the alpine lake of the same name).
The actions envisaged by the tender, which will be held in all the locations involved and include activities open to citizens and events dedicated to municipal administrations and associations, will begin in January 2024; the final event is expected in the summer of 2025.

The goal of the ENSEMBLE project is to promote the exchange of best practices in the field of sustainable tourism, energy and economic sustainability, focusing on the most important challenges of recent years, including climate change, biodiversity protection and sustainable mobility. In particular, the topic of alternative forms of tourism to deal with overtourism will be discussed.

Cycle tourism and walking itineraries, for example, are at the top of the selection criteria for tourist destinations: in Italy alone, in 2022, according to a study by ENIT, cycle tourism recorded 33 million visitors and doubled in the three-year period 2019-2022, according to the report “Traveling with the bike 2023” created by Isnart-Unioncamere.

The nEUlakes network is chaired by Riccardo Venchiarutti, president of Visit lake Iseo, and has the Mayor of Manzanares El Real, Luis Labrador Vioque, as vice president.