The European Union is the largest public funder of regional and tourism development in Europe. Through Cohesion Policy and related financial instruments, EU institutions have long shaped territoria...

This paper examines the evaluation frameworks applied to tourism-related interventions funded by the European Union (EU), focusing on their effectiveness in promoting accountability, learning, and sustainable outcomes. Through content analysis of evaluation reports, audits, and programme assessments from the EU’s Cohesion Policy data platform, the study identifies key methodological patterns and recurring challenges. Despite progress in adopting participatory and mixed-method approaches, evaluations remain limited in number and scope, with tourism accounting for less than 1% of all assessments. Persistent challenges include fragmented data, a lack of standardised indicators, inconsistent methodologies, and limited capacity to assess regional diversity and long-term impacts. Poor dissemination practices further restrict knowledge transfer and reduce the learning potential. By highlighting these gaps, the paper contributes to the underexplored field of tourism evaluation in EU policy and advocates for more harmonised and transparent evaluation protocols. Strengthening these foundations is critical to enhance the impact of EU funding and supporting evidence-based policymaking in the tourism sector.