Argiroupoli
GreCO - Green Cultural Oases
About the project
Imagine an urban destination that combines the allure of cultural diversity with the promise of sustainable and responsible living – a place where visitors can experience the heartbeat of the city through innovative, green and engaging means. This is the concept of ‘Green Cultural Oases’, a novel approach that promotes a resilient and dynamic urban tourism ecosystem for Elliniko-Argyroupoli Municipality that benefits both locals and visitors.
GreCO offers personalised routes tailored to visitors' cultural backgrounds, real-time data-driven insights for better management of congestion and pollution, and immersive cultural experiences. It actively engages the local community, promotes sustainable practices among policymakers and businesses, and integrates cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality (AR) and big data to create a resilient and inclusive tourism ecosystem.
The project thus attempts to address important issues such as environmental pollution, overtourism, and the need for long-term change in the beautiful seaside town of Elliniko-Argyroupoli. It follows a comprehensive, forward-thinking, and sustainable strategy, taking advantage of real-time digital solutions gathered from environmental measurement sensors, intercultural engagement, gamification with cultural representations, and reward systems for all stakeholders.
Challenges
Elliniko-Argyroupoli, located 9.5 km south of Athens and boasting a large coastal area and mountainous terrain, is the proud home of the largest urban regeneration project in Europe: the Hellinikon project. This is expected to increase its touristic flows, offering many potential local benefits, but also bringing significant risks of negative impacts.
Key challenges include the risks of overtourism, seasonality issues, cross-cultural conflicts, environmental stress, and economic inequalities. The project's core focus lies in addressing these social, economic, and environmental challenges.
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To ensure that increasing tourism enhances the well-being of the local community and fosters a positive relationship between residents, local stakeholders and tourists (social challenges).
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To ensure environmental sustainability, preservation of natural beauty and prevention of environmental degradation, which can result from tourism and especially overtourism (environmental challenges).
Proposed solutions
GreCo aims to implement suitable proactive and anticipatory measures to ensure the long-term sustainability and resilience of Elliniko-Argyroupoli as an emergent tourism destination. Concretely, it is working to provide personalised routes tailored to visitors' cultural backgrounds, real-time data-driven insights for better management of congestion and pollution, and immersive cultural experiences, to develop a sustainable and resilient urban destination, well- prepared to address the ever-evolving challenges facing the tourism industry.
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Unique, personalised, real-time, and immersive experiences for tourists. This is based on tailored, data-driven and gamified itineraries, depending on tourists’ cultural backgrounds and preferences, guiding them towards less-explored areas and encouraging interaction with locals.
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Active involvement of local stakeholders through educational programs to foster inclusivity, mitigates cross-cultural conflicts, and nurtures a sense of ownership among locals: citizens in engaging with the tourists and adopting sustainable behavior; businesses in committing to sustainable actions and intercultural marketing strategies.
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Addressing tourism-related pressures, such as overcrowding and environmental impact, notably with an efficient management of congestion and environmental degradation based on real-time data, to strategically directs tourists away from congested zones and encourage responsible sustainable behavior.
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Tackling existing and evolving disparity trends by incorporating undiscovered urban areas into the active economic zone of the community and diffusing existing and new economic activities towards them.
Milestones
Identifying the best sustainable practices for the Municipality’s stakeholders.
Designing a sustainability roadmap based on a mapping and analysis of the tourism market.
Designing tourist profiles, sustainable routes and environmental and intercultural scales.
Development of the GreCO application’s functionalities, sensors, AR and operation.
Monitoring the impact of the GreCO app operational phase, together with the mobility investments (minibuses for personalized tourist destinations).
Supporting the transfer of the solution with the transfer partners.