Sport tourism is a fast-growing segment of tourism offering new perspectives and supporting travelers’ behavior shift towards active living that is a boost for sustainable destinations. These interrelations between active living, active travelling, and sport tourism have a powerful environmental, economic, and social impact. Based on the recognized contribution of sport tourism in sustaining destinations, the current paper aims to (a) explore the state of sport tourism in the Adriatic–Ionian Region by identifying existing sport tourism initiatives, (b) analyze the current and future potentials of sport tourism in the area’s sustainable growth, and (c) draw policy recommendations for sport tourism development in the region with a view to support the wider vision of sustainability. The review of existing sport tourism cases, revealing an existing investment towards this tourism form, was followed by a qualitative survey of the area’s tourism stakeholders (Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia). Results reveal that sport tourism is estimated to help in building a unique identity closely linked to sustainability goals—the area represents a great natural and cultural beauty that can be emphasized by sport initiatives, while, once such efforts are incorporated in wider sustainability plans, the destinations’ profiles can be significantly upgraded.

This paper examines whether digitalization and smart solutions can be a crucial factor for reaching sustainability in tourism. It employs a literature review in combination with a comparative case study analysis and empirical data from different areas of Europe. The methodology employs a structured questionnaire distributed to regional tourism stakeholders to assess the importance of smart transformation in their region, supported by both quantitative and qualitative analysis. This research is based on the findings of the Interreg Europe project “TAAS—Tourism as a Service; a 360 degrees tourism experience” and the areas that are part of it as case studies. Using inductive reasoning, this paper highlights the importance of smart, digital interaction among tourists, regions, stakeholders and policies. The results of the questionnaire provide concrete evidence on the perspective of stakeholders regarding digitalization and its role in enhancing the social, environmental and economic dimensions of tourism sustainability.

Putting citizens in the position of city planners while giving them a sense of purpose and plans' ownership is a difficult task since the win-win effect of participating in mobility planning is, in the majority of cases, not properly communicated. Aiming to display to travelers the value of their contribution with ultimate scope to increase the participatory approach in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) concept, the current paper presents the e-platform of MOTIVATE project (MED programme, 2014-2020) developed to cover low citizens' engagement levels. MOTIVATE e-platform is estimated to become a useful tool on the hands of city planners and transport engineers via which, the daunting task of data collection and idea/views/opinions capturing will be facilitated. Furthermore, the exploitation of MOTIVATE e-platform is estimated to support travel behavior change towards environmental friendly ways of transport and increase the acceptability, and thus the efficiency, of sustainable mobility plans.

This paper examines whether destination cards can simultaneously serve tourists’ needs and sustainability goals. It provides useful insights for tourism authorities and policymakers in designing a smart tourist card that meets the needs of tourists while preserving and supporting areas’ wellbeing. Taking Thessaloniki city as a case study, a tourist survey, designed based on the key features of European destination cards, was implemented to identify needs and motivations. Interesting insight was revealed: tourists want to self-explore the city, are coming with their families, are history-lovers and gastronomy-keen, and are strongly willing to be provided with a destination card offering unlimited access to public transport. The latter reveals an opportunity for the city; the tourists are willing to use sustainable mobility options, which means that a base of sustainable travelling exists. The proposed Thessaloniki smart card can bring together tourists’ needs with the city’s sustainability goals; the development of tourist packages, including sustainable mobility provisions, walking-talking tours, and bike rentals, should be the backbone of the card. The next challenge for the city is to build a cooperation network to support this smart destination card implementation and promotion.

This paper is based on SUSTAIN, an ERASMUS+ project with an innovative perspective on urban transportation, and its target is to promote the importance of sustainability on the everyday problem of urban transportation among the students of higher education (and not only), who are the policy makers of tomorrow. In order to achieve its goals, the research team is currently developing a course that will be based on an interactive serious board game with an analytical style of education. SUSTAIN’s purpose is to create a game that will allow students to learn about transportation sustainability and societal metabolism through playing. The project partners develop small and illustrative simulation models, which will make the definitions more concrete and allow students to experiment largely in a consequence-free environment. The simulation models can be used to identify scenario exemplars on how we can achieve sustainable urban transportation and consequently a balanced societal metabolism, while on the same time taking into account formal decision making processes. In this paper, we are going to explain a Stocks ---amp--- Flows Diagram for the above mentioned model, with a system dynamics approach.