Helping Tourism Businesses Plan for What Comes Next
Next GEN Tourism is an Erasmus+ funded project that focuses on succession readiness in tourism SMEs. At its core, Next GEN Tourism is about one simple thing:
helping tourism businesses survive and thrive beyond their founder.
Its goal is to help tourism businesses prepare early, plan better, and transition successfully — whether that transition involves family members, new managers, external buyers, or next-generation entrepreneurs.
The Succession Challenge Facing Tourism SMEs
Across Ireland and Europe, tourism is largely made up of small owner-managed businesses — guesthouses, activity providers, cafés, attractions, tour companies — many of them owner-managed and family-run. Many are family-run. Many are based in rural or coastal areas. Many have been built over decades through long hours, personal sacrifice, and deep ties to place.
These businesses are often long-standing, generational-led, and vitally important to their communities, yet a growing number face a shared challenge: succession.
The Irish Context: Why Succession Matters Locally
In Ireland, this is particularly visible in rural and coastal regions, where tourism enterprises are often the backbone of local economies. According to Fáilte Ireland, the vast majority of Irish tourism businesses are SMEs, many operated by founders who have built their businesses over decades.Without succession planning, businesses risk closing suddenly or quickly, there can be significant job losses, skills and local knowledge disappear, the local experience fades away, and communities lose important services and local identity.
Why Succession Planning Is Often Overlooked
Even though succession planning is vital for continued existence and sustainability it is rarely a part of tourism business planning and often not available in tourism education or SME support structures.
Next GEN Tourism exists to change that.
Next GEN Tourism is a European cooperation project designed to address that challenge head-on – to stop succession being something that’s only talked about when it’s already a problem.
Why This Matters for Irish Tourism Businesses
If you work with tourism businesses in Ireland, you’ll know this already:
most owners are brilliant at running their business — but very few have had the time, space, or support to think about what happens when they step back.
For Irish tourism SMEs, Next GEN Tourism offers indirect but powerful support.
By strengthening the people and organisations that support businesses, the project helps ensure that:
- Succession planning becomes part of normal business development
- Owners are supported earlier, not at crisis point
- Successors are better prepared and more confident
- Businesses are more resilient, investable, and sustainable
For regions dependent on tourism, this means greater continuity, stability, and long-term economic resilience.
