Govt opens funding call for tourism development

The government has opened the call for funding for development of tourism on Friday, said an official press release.

The targeted call for funding will be organised from 3 July to 31 August 2020 and the new funding is available for the promotion and recovery of the tourism industry and the development of tourism in the regions.

The funding is open to regional tourism organisations and similar actors that support the activities of companies and develop the region’s tourism on a broad scale.

Funding is intended for projects that support the regions’ opportunities to develop tourism, strengthen management and coordination of tourism development and improve national cooperation.

A total of EUR 4 million is reserved for the projects in the fourth supplementary budget for 2020. The Government’s aim is to help tourism companies recover from the coronavirus crisis.

Tourism organisations located in the regions of Eastern and Northern Finland can apply for funding from the Regional Council of South Savo. The funding authority for regions in Southern and Western Finland will be the Regional Council of Southwest Finland. Larger joint projects can apply for funding either in the Eastern-Northern region or in the Southern-Western region, based on the location of the registered office of the project’s main developer in the Business Information System.

The main objective of the projects is to promote the recovery of the tourism industry and to develop tourism in the regions. The projects should be launched and implemented quickly and they should be completed by 31 December 2021.

The projects must also be compatible with the main themes of Finland’s tourism strategy. These include 1. Making sustainability a key asset of Finnish tourism, 2. Digitalisation of the tourism sector, 3. Improving accessibility to support the growth of tourism services, 4. Ensuring an operating environment that supports competitiveness.

Detailed application and evaluation criteria are available on the websites of the Regional Council of South Savo and the Regional Council of Southwest Finland, the press release added.