NEW ERA FOR THE TOURISM OF THESSALONIKI

Bekiaris Patoulidou MoU

Memorandum of Understanding between HIT/CERTH and the Thessaloniki Tourism Organization (TTO)

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 2 July 2020 between the President of the Thessaloniki Tourism Organization (TTO) Voula Patoulidou and the Director of HIT/CERTH, Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris.

HIT, as an internationally recognized research organization in the field of Sustainable Mobility and New Technologies, has included Τοurism into the scope of its research. At the same time, Sustainable Urban Mobility and Sustainable Tourism are a priority for the TTO, so the cooperation of the two bodies is a common path.

The objectives of this MoU are:

HIT-TTO collaboration within the framework of SUSTOURISMO project, which aims to promote Sustainable Tourism in Thessaloniki through the development of special applications and tourist packages
Testing the implementation of a single tourist card for the metropolitan area of Thessaloniki
Their cooperation in the submission of tourism-related proposals and the transfer of proposals to European and National funded programs.

Moreover, it was agreed that HIT/CERTH, having implemented mobile and web applications and surveys within the context of completed and ongoing projects (MOTIVATE https://www.motivate.imet.gr/, SUSTOURISMO https://sustourismo.adrioninterreg.eu/ , etc), will provide TTO with information regarding tourist movement as well as their opinion regarding the services offered in the specific area, in order to be integrated in already existing tourist information platform and application (web and app) of TTO (https://thessaloniki.travel/el/).

The creation of "Tourist Card for Thessaloniki" provide the visitor an opportunity to prepay specific tourist packages through ensuring the visit to museums and other cultural sites of the city, the movement with sustainable means (bicycle, etc.), participation in tours, etc.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of the cooperation between the two institutions, a team of specialized personnel is formed to support the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the Memorandum of Cooperation.