Summary

The Flourishing Destinations approach is one where people come together to create and develop a thriving community that benefits visitors and locals alike. The participating areas wished to grow their tourism activities in a way that could be mindful of the community and natural capital of their areas. LAG members and LEADER staff from Romania (Bazinul Dornelor), Flanders (Meetjesland) and Scotland (Angus) organised transnational cooperation (TNC) actions as a forward-thinking investment for their own local communities, to identify, test and develop a model approach to community-led sustainable tourism.

Results

The main achievement has been to support the local tourism communities and to focus them on joint cooperative, sustainable development of their area. 

Increased numbers of local actors are now more engaged in wider community and rural development considerations and have used the project to profile their work at regional and national level. 

The personal development of the people involved, acquired from being engaged in funded and structured networking activities. 

The role of the Flourishing Destinations approach, while essential at the project’s early stages, latterly provided a useful benchmark against which practice and theory can be weighed.