Coastal & Maritime Tourism

Quality Coast Programme

With the QualityCoast programme, the Coastal & Marine Union - EUCC aims to establish a worldwide network of coastal communities that share similar values on sustainable development, nature and biodiversity, cultural heritage and identity, and social responsibility, at the same time maintaining high standards in the quality of their tourism. QualityCoast has been developed in the EU INTERREG IIIC project Coastal Practice Network (CoPraNet) by 21 partners from 11 countries under the lead of the Coastal & Marine Union – EUCC. The QualityCoast programme was the result of the development of success indicators of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) at local level, in connection to the implementation of the EU Recommendation for ICZM (2002). QualityCoast provides new ways of cooperation between coastal communities. Communities join a network of like-minded communities and share their experiences and best practices in order to improve sustainability and social responsibility in tourism. Their performance in these fields is connected to international tourism marketing through certification under the supervision of an independent international jury issuing QualityCoast Awards. In the QualityCoast Award programme EUCC cooperates with approximately 100 coastal and island destinations.