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Icelanders are lucky enough to have plenty of hot water, and they use it for many useful things, like heating their houses and bathing and have done so for quite a long time. There is just something about sitting in hot water in bad weather that sparks a sense of relaxation and enjoyment. While bathing in the hot water Icelanders have always liked doing that with each other, and to this day it is a very important part of the Icelandic culture, to go to the swimming pool, who most are geothermally heated. In Iceland, the weather is too bad for [...]

Can you picture yourself on a beach tasting a delicious ice-cream on a hot sunny day just before diving on paradise-like seawater? Or having a relaxing massage in a thermal water spa? What about learning how to cook a delicious traditional stew of a lost tribe that teaches you some new useful techniques? Or guiding yourself with a map and a compass through a mountain top to reach a remote natural thermal water pool just for you? The idea that experiences are more meaningful and bring more happiness than goods has become widely discussed by tourism scholars and market operators. It [...]

“In our stressed world, wellness tourism is, says Lonely Planet, the industry’s fastest growing sector with a 10% rise [in 2018] making it a plus $500bn market” (The Yucatan Times, 2018).  According to the Global Wellness Institute, the global wellness economy was a $4.5 trillion market in 2018, while in 2017 travellers made 830 million international and domestic wellness trips, representing 17 percent of all tourism expenditures. There are inherent difficulties, however, in defining what wellbeing tourism actually is and what it encompasses – it is apparent that ‘wellness’ and wellbeing’ are often used interchangeably.  The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness [...]

Slow adventure experiences, such as canoeing, stargazing or foraging, are characterised by a slower passage of time, immersion in the natural world and a sense of belonging to small social groups. During slow adventures, the perceptions of time, meaningful moments and a sense of togetherness are choreographed by adventure guides to shape tourists’ wellbeing through immersive experiences, ultimately helping them to re-establish a much-yearned-for connection with nature. The contemporary world has become more mobile, interconnected and fluid, and, despite the expectation that technological change would increase people’s free time, the pace of life has only accelerated. People’s free time has been [...]

Introducing the LIME programme LIME (Lean Innovation for Micro Enterprises) is an Erasmus+ project bringing together partners from the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Denmark and Poland. The overall goal of this programme is to introduce the lean innovation skillset to our education systems, and by extension to our economies.What is Lean Innovation and how can it help our economies? Innovation is often positioned as the key for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, but is rarely viable for micro-enterprises on account of the high costs. Lean innovation offers an alternative route. Download “Newsletter” LIME-Newsletter.pdf – Downloaded 86 times – 249 KB The post LIME Newsletter appeared [...]

DETOUR empowers tourism destinations to develop and embed wellbeing philosophy and capitalise on the tourism and economic benefits which follow such as increased consumer spending, additional employment opportunities and contributions to GDP. It will upskill VET educators and Tourism SME’s about the potential of wellbeing tourism as an emerging European Tourism Megatrend which can increase their competitiveness, inspire new wellbeing tourism products/services and develop even stronger unique value propositions. (VisitBritain, 2014, World Travel and Tourism Council, 2014, Deloitte, 2013). It is clear that wellbeing tourism is an expanding niche market globally, providing specific business opportunities through products that promote or maintain [...]

Although SMEs are referred to as the backbone of Europe’s economy, it is really micro enterprises (with less than 10 employees) that sustain employment and have most growth potential: 9 out of 10 SMEs are micro-enterprises, they employee one third of the workforce and produce more than 40% of economic value added (EC, Annual Report on European SMEs 2018). With innovation at the forefront of the drive for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, it follows that innovation support and training should be focussed on the micro sector. However, innovation policy and practice -at EU and national level- is still dominated by [...]

Using the power of technologies like open hardware, online marketplaces and digital fabrication, can empower people to take more control over their responsibility to preserve the planet for future generations. Here are just a few of the initiatives: Making Sense: Giving citizens the power to monitor their environment (pan-EU) Making Sense is an EU-funded project which uses the Smart Citizen Kit, an open-source Arduino-based environmental sensing kit, and other citizen sensing kits to empower communities and help them improve their environments. Making Sense is running nine pilots in three European cities to measure things like noise pollution, gamma radiation and air [...]