INTERSMARTS, one of the Turkish-partnered projects under the Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme, organized an international conference titled Advancing Sustainable Tourism and Blue Growth in the Black Sea Basin.

The conference featured panel discussions on Leveraging EU and International Funds for the Development of Sustainable Tourism, Balancing Growth and Environmental Responsibility through Zero-Waste Management, Transforming Tourism: Startup-Driven Sustainability in Action, Collaborating for Sustainable Tourism: Multi-Stakeholder Approaches in Action, Tourism in the Age of Limits: Reinventing Growth, and INTERSMARTS Project Results and Best Practice Cases.

Opening remarks under the session Networking and Collaboration in Sustainable Tourism were delivered by representatives of the project partners: Prof. Dr. Vesselin Blagoev, Head of Doctoral School and Project Manager of Varna University of Management, Prof. Petros Samaras Head of the Department of Food Science and Technology of International Hellenic University, Maria Hămuraru Partner Coordinator of Moldova State University, and Dr. Ziya Taşkent Secretary General of Istanbul Development Agency. On behalf of the National Authority of the Programme, Övünç Güneş, Head of the Department for Cross-border Cooperation at the Directorate for EU Affairs, also delivered an opening speech. Güneş additionally served as the moderator of the panel Leveraging EU and International Funds to Advance Sustainable Tourism. During the conference, presentations were also made on the INTERSMARTS Network and INTERSMARTS Platform, bringing together stakeholders from academia, public institutions, the private sector, and the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Implemented through a partnership among Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece, and Türkiye, the project aims to address the challenges faced by sustainable tourism. It seeks to enhance sustainability performance and the capacity to adopt innovations in the tourism and service sectors through an interdisciplinary network open to applied research and technology transfer.

The project also achieved remarkable recognition at the 2025 Black Sea Stakeholders Conference, winning two awards. INTERSMARTS received the Black Sea Project Award 2025 in the category of Promoting Investment in the Black Sea Blue Economy, and was also voted Winner of Winners through a live poll among conference participants.