Challenge Fitur Next

The FiturNext 2024 Challenge focuses on territories and how tourism can help to mitigate population loss. Depopulation is a demographic and territorial phenomenon that refers to the ageing and emptying of spaces, caused by the mass exodus from these areas and the concentration of inhabitants in large urban areas and nearby ones.

These empty spaces, converted into "lonely areas" ("Aree interne" in Italian or "Udkantsdanmark" in Danish) suffer from a lack of basic local services, accessibility, mobility and connectivity, and generate the so-called "demotanasia", understood as the slow and silent disappearance of the population of a territory. This phenomenon not only worsens people's quality of life, but also contributes to the abandonment of crops, the desertification and acidification of territories and the neglect of environments in the face of fires.

According to the United Nations, 55% of the world's population lived in cities in 2018, a percentage that is expected to increase by 70% by 2050.  These cities consume 75% of the world's energy resources and emit 80% of the carbon that pollutes the environment, causing the saturation of spaces and services.

For all these reasons, the FiturNext Observatory is launching the 2024 challenge in harmony with SDGs 8, 10 and 11, in order to find good tourism practices that contribute to territorial balance and revitalisation through tourism.

To understand the positive effect of the initiatives that submit their candidature, we show 9 impact indicators that help to measure their contribution to the challenge:

• Visitor growth: the increase of visitors to the territory is vital for the viability of the project and the beginning of territorial revitalisation.
• Increase in tourist services: the increase in visitors stimulates the creation of new tourist services to meet the needs of the growing demand.
• Increase in connectivity: the growth of the two previous indicators leads to improvements in territorial connectivity, both in terms of transport or access and communications.
• Number of new businesses created: the stimulation of demand leads to the creation of new business offers which, without being tourism-related, contribute to satisfying the needs of supply and, therefore, of demand.
• Trade: all of the above leads to an increase in commercial activities in the territory and its surrounding areas.
• Employment: thanks to the increase in new services, companies, connectivity and commerce, the need for labour is generated, which increases the supply of jobs in the territory.
• Population growth: the increase in the six previous indicators contributes to the attraction of population to these areas, increasing the number of inhabitants.
• Increase of children in the territory (annual ratio): with the growth of the population coming from abroad, the population begins to increase naturally in the destination, increasing the number of children and young people in the destination and, with them, the future of the territory is strengthened.
• Increase of basic services (schools, health centres, pharmacies...): the growth of the population of the territory and the generation of commercial activities, connectivity and employment, naturally generate the increase of basic services that cover the needs of the new population in conditions of security and sustainability.

You can register your initiative by clicking on this link.

The deadline will be open until 31 August 2023.

The projects that reach the final will participate in the activities that will take place at our Fitur 2024 stand and subsequent actions and will benefit from the visibility provided by being part of the FiturNext community thanks to its impact on the media and the synergies created among its participants.