LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), August 8 (SeeNews) – Slovenia's capital Ljubljana has been shortlisted for the 2020 European Capital of Smart Tourism competition organised by the European Commission (EC), the European Capital of Smart Tourism initiative said.
The competition aims to promote smart tourism in the EU, foster innovative, sustainable and inclusive tourism development, as well as spread and facilitate the exchange of best practices, the European Capital of Smart Tourism initiative said in a statement on Wednesday.
The initiative recognises outstanding achievements by European cities as tourism destinations in four categories: accessibility, sustainability, digitalisation as well as cultural heritage and creativity, it said.
The other shortlisted cities are Bratislava (Slovakia), Breda (The Netherlands), Bremerhaven (Germany), Gothenburg (Sweden), Karlsruhe (Germany), Malaga (Spain), Nice (France), Ravenna (Italy) and Torino (Italy). The shortlisted cities were selected from a total of 35 applications from across 17 EU member states.
This is the second edition of the competition to award two cities as the European Capitals of Smart Tourism in 2020. The two winning cities will benefit from communication and branding support for a year, including a promotional video, a purpose-built sculpture for their city centres, as well as bespoke promotional actions.
Last year, Helsinki and Lyon won the inaugural competition and the two cities jointly hold the titles of European Capitals of Smart Tourism in 2019.