The region Murcia aims to integrate approaches to slow tourism from the European cooperation project SlowDown into its funding instruments and strategy papers. Delegates from the Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia attended the sixth interregional meeting in Amiens from 22 to 24 September 2026. The host was Amiens Métropole. According to the participants, the focus was on nature tourism, sustainable mobility and enhancing local resources.
The regional Dirección General de Competitividad y Calidad Turísticas identified the next steps as examining tools to measure tourism’s impact, promoting slow mobility options and involving local networks more closely in planning and implementation. No specific timetable for pilot projects in Murcia was given in the published statements. The region stresses that proven practices should not be copied wholesale, but adapted to local legal, organisational and financial conditions.
SlowDown is Interreg Europe funded by and brings together regional and local authorities and development agencies. Examples from the partnership were presented in Amiens. One point of reference was the initiative Primavera Slow nel Delta del Po from Italy’s Po Delta region, which is listed in Interreg Europe’s good practice database. According to the partners, it helps extend the season and strengthen regional value chains. The hosts also pointed to shortcomings in indicators and monitoring, which are to be addressed across the project.
For Murcia, exchanges with European regions are one component in promoting a less intensive, quality-focused tourism model. Regional authorities say they will feed the findings from Amiens into ongoing work on strategy papers and potential funding calls. Whether and when individual approaches are turned into specific programmes depends, according to the participants, on internal coordination and the design of national and European funding instruments.
The meeting in Amiens was therefore primarily a technical step in the project cycle. Political decisions in Murcia are still pending. What is clear, however, is that the region is using comparison with Europe to refine existing instruments: more precise impact measurement, closer cooperation with local providers, and mobility solutions that slow travel and better connect regional offerings. Progress will be measured by how these elements are incorporated into the work of the Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia and its partners.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).