Tarragona and the UOC kick-start two projects on beach sustainability

Picking up bottles in exchange for sweets and an area for looking after and adopting pets on the beaches of Tarragona were the ideas for two projects that have come out of Innoturisme – a programme organized by the Diputació de Tarragona (Tarragona provincial government) and the UOC through the Hubbik support platform for entrepreneurship and open innovation.

After conducting an innovation process to identify challenges and put solutions forward, the two projects were selected by the organizers. The first, La Gosseria (Catalan for the dog home), is an initiative to provide an enclosed area for pets at the beach. It's a project that seeks not only to care for people's pets but also to offer a space for animal adoption centres to introduce people to animals needing a new home. The idea came from Jorge Caballero, Yassin En Nouny and Albert Martí, who are studying marketing and advertising at Institut de l’Ebre, in Tortosa.

Sumem reciclant is an initiative thought up by Houssaine Ait Brahim, Fran Carratalà, Jaume Canalda and Josep Sol, who are studying for bachelor's degrees in marketing and advertising at the same school in Tortosa. Their plan is to offer people sweets in exchange for picking up bottles off the beach, thereby helping to keep it clean.

Innoturisme

Mireia Riera, director of the UOC Knowledge Transfer and Research Support Office, highlighted how this programme aims to "provide solutions for specific challenges relating to family tourism, involving a range of organizations from the sector: the Patronat de Turisme (regional tourism board), the hospitality guild, the PCT Science and Technology Park for Tourism and Leisure of Catalonia, the Red Cross, and the Col·legi de Farmacèutics (professional association of pharmacists)".