DES: International Counseling Association for Sustainable Tourism
Our mission
DES Srl is a qualified counseling society for International cooperation in the sustainable tourism sector.
We are experts in planning and managing development and professional training projects, technical assistance, local regional development and supporting small and medium businesses. We have at our disposal a team of multidisciplinary experts, both academic and vocational, that allows us to deal with all aspects of the tourism sector: economic, cultural social and environmental sustainability.
Beside the permanent group of the center’s permanent experts, DES also has a wide network of contacts with universities and counselors in many countries (in the Mediterranean Area, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa), that can be quickly activated for brief or long term assignments.
DES’ always prefers using local experts and human resources, to insure a high sustainability of the projects in the long term and favor know-how and skills sharing.
Why DES?
Thanks to its International experience, DES believes in innovative solutions and technical expertise of the highest level for planning and implementation of development projects in the tourism sector.
With management skills that focus on efficiency in the organization of development projects and result oriented skills, DES offers very competitive services guaranteeing that a high percentage of the investments will be effectively used in the realization of the project, not just for operational and administrative costs, but also to cover external human resources expenses as well-
Our services:
- Joint approach methods
- Capacity building
- Full cycle project management (identification, implementation, and evaluation)
- Technical/financial planning and management of the projectsPianificazione
- Technical assistance
Our areas of knowledge concentrate on tourism and all connected sectors as well:
- Local rural development and creation of a valuable tourism environment (agricolture, craftsmanship, etc…)
- Preparation of tourism development plans at all levels (national, regional and local)
- Institutional support
- Infrastructure
- Training needs analysis
- Fighting poverty
- Integrated management of National parks
- Supportting micro-businesses
- Microfinance for the private tourism sector
- EU development
- Marketing strategies
- Business planning
- Public-private partnerships
- Transparent EU management of collective funds (politcal empowerment)
- Evaluation of social, economic, cultural, political and environmental effects of tourism development.
Tourism and development: our philosophy
- Promote tourism as a means for development, empowerment of local communities and an instrument to fight poverty.
- Favor sustainable tourism through institutional support and inclusive planning methods.
- Pay particular attention to the social, economic, cultural, political and environmental effects of tourism development.
- Integrate tourism in local economies through the creation of value chains between various economic sectors.
- Use appropriate marketing and accounting strategies in anti-poverty tourism projects, through agreements with the private sector, so that these initiatives don’t remain at the margins of the national tourism sector.
- Develop new methods of EU tourism that stimulate micro-businesses, networking, and the transparent management of collective funds with the aim of starting development processes and not just economic growth.
Adapt the projects to the local situations, listen to the stakeholders needs and suggestions thanks to brainstorming and innovative inclusion techniques.
