The blue economy represents 5.4 million jobs in Europe and a gross added value of almost 500,000 million euros per year. Among the sectors with greater possibilities within the blue economy is maritime tourism, which is an important source of entrepreneurship.

According to the annual economic report on blue economy of the EU presented by the European Commission, coastal tourism contributes in a very significant way to the creation of jobs. Therefore, the blue tourism sector has a special potential to encourage the development of new companies, which implies the implementation of actions that aim to improve business skills of young people who have a vocation to be enterpreneurs and who want to have a greater knowledge of blue tourism linked to sustainability.

The Ecoblue Project aims at achieving the following objectives:

1) the growth of entrepreneurship opportunities in blue ecotourism in coastal countries through an innovative training methodology to improve the entrepreneurial skills of long-term unemployed youngsters.

2) The implementation of a training course, concerning the blue ecotourism, in centres and training organizations

3) The improvement of the professional competence of adult trainers, in relation to the teaching method through an app, in the areas related to the promotion of entrepreneurship in blue tourism.

 A training guide on blue ecotourism business plans and an Ecoblue tourism Mobile learning app -to acquire business skills required to creating a blue ecotourism company- have been developed through the project.

The main beneficiaries of the project have been long-term unemployed young people who want to improve their skills in entrepreneurship and trainers interested in acquiring new methods of entrepreneurship training aimed at creating companies in blue ecotourism. The project, as well, has been targeted to other interested parties such as training centres, entrepreneur organizations, chambers of commerce, business associations, and local, regional or national authorities related to entrepreneurship and tourism.

On 15 July 2021, the last project meeting was held in Fano, Italy, with the aim of sharing the last information among the partners.

The Ecoblue tourism Mobile learning APP, compatible with android and iOs systems,  is now free available on Play Store and App store in all partner languages and English.

For further information, please visit the project website at http://ecobluetourism.eu/