On 16 April 2026, MONA hosted its fifth capacity-building webinar, bringing together experts from tourism, mobility and regional policy to explore how the two sectors can work together more effectively to create sustainable and accessible travel experiences in nature areas and tourism destinations.
As visitor numbers continue to grow, so does pressure on ecosystems, infrastructure and local communities. Transport remains a significant contributor to tourism's environmental footprint, yet shifting visitors away from the car requires collaboration between sectors that have traditionally operated in parallel rather than in partnership. The webinar examined destination management models, governance frameworks and practical strategies that demonstrate what cross-sector collaboration can achieve in practice.
Destination management models and sustainable visitor mobility
Cristina Núñez from NECSTouR opened the session by making the case for placing sustainable visitor mobility at the heart of destination management, not as a niche transport question, but as a cross-cutting priority for tourism regions across Europe. NECSTouR's 2030 Pathway is built around three strategic hubs: Governance, Climate, and a Tourism of Tomorrow Data Lab, with a vision of mobility as an enabler of a destination's sustainability and competitiveness.
Núñez presented the evolving role of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), which have moved well beyond traditional marketing functions to take on strategic planning, territorial coordination and sustainable development. Under NECSTouR's Climate Hub, Action 3 focuses specifically on mapping members' knowledge and practices to enable better sustainable tourism mobility planning, with the broader ambition of developing integrated door-to-door products from international transport hubs to the last mile.
A case study from the Urederra Natural Park in Navarre illustrated what data-driven mobility planning looks like on the ground. Working with NECSTouR's Tourism of Tomorrow Data Lab, the park developed an interactive dashboard aggregating internal data sources (booking engines, website traffic and demand forecasts) to reduce the environmental impact of tourist flows. The approach has since been scaled to ten points of interest across the region. The presentation closed with a clear call to action: aligning policies across tourism, transport, culture and climate; investing in inclusive mobility infrastructure that serves both visitors and residents; and engaging DMOs as active partners in developing integrated tourism and mobility products.
Multi-level governance: transport and tourism working together
Froukje Bekius from the Nationaal Park Utrechtse Heuvelrug (NPUH) presented the governance challenges of making recreational mobility more sustainable in a nature area under growing visitor pressure. Despite sitting in one of the most densely populated regions of the Netherlands, with extensive public transport infrastructure and a well-developed cycling culture, 80% of visitors to the Utrechtse Heuvelrug still arrive by car. Population growth in surrounding cities is expected to increase that pressure further.
A structural difficulty is the fragmented nature of land ownership and governance: the park does not own the land it manages, with responsibility distributed across eleven municipalities, one province, numerous private landowners and three area-based organisations. Recreational mobility does not respect administrative boundaries, and no single policy instrument is sufficient to address it. Between 2024 and 2025, NPUH facilitated an intensive co-creation process to develop a shared regional vision for sustainable recreational mobility involving municipalities, transport providers, landowners and civil society. In December 2025, a Declaration of Intent was signed to formalise continued cooperation on sustainable recreational mobility as a means to protect nature and ensure accessibility for all.
The challenge now is moving from vision to implementation. NPUH is establishing an Administrative Programme Board to coordinate action across organisations, supported by thematic working groups on hubs and last-mile connectivity, zoning and data. Crucially, NPUH acts as an independent process coordinator rather than a decision-making authority — a deliberate choice that reflects the reality that effective governance here depends on sustained cooperation rather than top-down control. Remaining challenges are significant: responsibilities remain fragmented, financing is uncertain and new actors may still need to be brought in. As Bekius made clear, building a shared vision is only the beginning.
Crete's roadmap for sustainable tourism
Yiannis Anastasakis, Deputy Regional Governor for Climate Change and Sustainable Mobility for the Region of Crete, opened with a frank account of the pressures facing Mediterranean tourism destinations. According to the 2025 World Economic Forum Global Risks Report, environmental risks are expected to dominate tourism-related challenges over the coming decade. For Crete, this is already a lived reality: rising temperatures and heatwaves, increasing water scarcity and wildfire seasons now beginning as early as March. The old approach, Anastasakis argued, is no longer viable. The cost of inaction outweighs the cost of transition.
Crete's response is a Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Tourism, developed through a participatory process involving around 40 stakeholders from across the tourism value chain, including hotels, transport operators, local authorities, agri-food businesses and environmental organisations. The roadmap is organised around ten action pillars, from water management and ecosystem protection to local production and tourism for all , with decarbonisation as a priority throughout. Governance is treated as a foundational pillar, with coordination mechanisms, stakeholder dialogue and performance monitoring built in from the outset. The roadmap is aligned with Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria, laying the groundwork for future certification. Phase B, running from 2026 to 2028, will focus on moving from strategy to implementation through pilot actions, monitoring systems and expanded stakeholder engagement.
Tourism and mobility in Catalonia
Albert Guillaumes from the Government of Catalonia offered a practical perspective on what sustainable tourism mobility looks like when applied at scale. Catalonia welcomed 20 million visitors in 2025 making it the most visited region in Spain. Against this backdrop, the Government of Catalonia has developed a series of public transport solutions to connect visitors to nature parks and coastal areas, building on a regional interurban bus network that already carries 90 million passengers per year across 837 lines.
For nature parks, three dedicated bus services have been established. At the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park in the Pyrenees, bus lines from the La Pobla de Segur rail station provide daily services during school holidays with integrated fares. At El Montseny, four weekend bus lines connect rail stations to the park. At the Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa, a shuttle service launched in 2023 offers up to fourteen daily trips in summer for a return fare of just €2.00, a deliberate affordability measure designed to make sustainable access the obvious choice.
In the Camp de Tarragona coastal area, the challenge is managing extreme seasonal demand across a complex network linking Reus Airport, a high-speed rail station, the PortAventura theme park and a string of popular beach resorts. The presentation illustrated how the bus and rail network is configured differently in summer and winter to respond to that variability. The overarching message was pragmatic: well-designed public transport is not a luxury but a practical tool for managing visitor flows and making destinations accessible without compromising what makes them worth visiting.
Destination management models Cristina Núñez , NECSTouR, the Network of European Regions for Competitive and Sustainable Tourism
Crete's vision for Sustainable Tourism Ioannis Anastasakis, Region of Crete
Multi level governance – transport and tourism working together Froukje Bekius, Nationaal Park Utrechtse Heuvelrug
Tourism and mobility in Catalonia Albert Guillaumes Marcer, Generalitat de Catalunya