Like Olympus, Etna and Canigó, Mountain Cika is a coastal Mediterranean mountain, emblematic for its history, landscape and identity..
All these mountains and the areas influenced by them are confronted with the challenge of protecting their assets from endogenous & exogenous threats like natural risks as the ones linked to climate changes, impacts from tourism, etc. Driven by these challenges the network of Emblematic Mediterranean Mountains was created and launched under the framework of the LEADER 2007-2013 Programme as a cooperation initiative.
Today, 9 coastal mountains have joined the network of Emblematic Mediterranean Mountains aiming to benefit from a strong attractiveness which may generate returns in terms of tourist and recreational flows.
· Canigò and Sainte Victoire (France),
· Etna and Gran Sasso (Italy),
· Olympus and Ida (Greece),
· Pedra Forca and Serra de Tramuntana (Spain)
· Cika (Albania).
Through the EMbleMatic initiative have come together as territories confronted with common issues, often linked to their attractiveness.
Cika, represented by Himara Municipality, joined forces with these 8 coastal territories in order to meet the challenge of a more sustainable and responsible form of tourism, by applying an integrated and eco-systemic approach.
They are looking for common solutions to organise more pro-actively our touristic destinations in order to not suffer so much from their natural appeal and to minimize some of their sometime irreversible impacts.
The objective of the EMbleMatiC initiative is to create and test a new and radically different tourism offer based on the features of these mountains and to create an alternative to the traditional holiday on the beach.
This will be mostly achieved through the implementation of an ambitious and sustainable tourism strategy that will differentiate these territories whilst complementing the traditional tourism offer from the seaside (positioning, offer, targets, seasonality, …)
This initiative will contribute to re-balance tourist flows between the sea and the mountain, to extend the seasonality and to improve economic returns for the territories influenced by Cika.
