Blue economy represents 5.4 million jobs and a gross added value of just under €500 billion yearly. As part of the EU Integrated Maritime Policy (2012), it aims to strengthen the potential for jobs and growth of EU's seas. This requires investing in a well-skilled workforce to meet the labour market needs. However, coastal communities are often isolated with limited access to technology, public infrastructure, training opportunities, lack of financial resources for local start-ups, lack of coherent marketing strategies and the inability to diversify activities to overcome seasonality, which limit the sector’s capacity to create sustainable jobs. Various EU studies emphasise that the maritime industry does not currently provide to professionals the potential for different careers opportunities in the sector.PESCAVET’s main objective is to create favourable conditions for increased opportunities for sustainable entrepreneurship in the pesca-tourism sector and to contribute to the development of coastal communities in the Mediterranean and Black sea basins. The main target group addressed are professionals either currently employed in or/and unemployed desiring to enter the pesca-tourism sector wishing to develop their competences. The latter is a relatively new concept of fisheries related tourism aiming to support the supplement incomes of fishermen and their families and to provide knowledge on mechanisms for creating attractive activities for tourists visiting the coast.The project aims to contribute to society awareness about the problems of the marine sector and traditional fishing culture and to the improvement of entrepreneurial skills via the implementation of a benchmark exercise on new processes and marketing techniques for designing, promoting and review of products or services in pesca-tourism (IO1), the creation of a Gateway for technical support with specific training and coaching activities (IO2) and the development of an e-course on enhancing entrepreneurial skills in pesca-tourism (IO3).The PESCAVET project brings together 4 partners from 4 countries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins (LV, IT, CY, BG), dealing with Blue Economy, providing a coherent response to the challenges faced by the sector, complementing existing initiatives developed by various stakeholders.The total number of people, who will benefit from or will be targeted via the project activities during its duration, is moderately estimated at approximately 5000 people. Partners in each country will aim to achieve, as much as possible, the number of such beneficiaries and, in general, of people informed about the project, its objectives and results attained. It is expected that this will contribute towards greater awareness of the issues with opportunities to develop the needed competences for the up skilling of professionals working and/or wishing to enter the blue economy sectors.The implementation of the aforementioned actions is expected to result in the:• Change the way of thinking of different communities in the Mediterranean area and Black Sea, to a more comprehensive approach, establishing the pesca-tourism concept in one of the most attractive areas in Europe;• Boost the sustainable economic growth of the European maritime sectors, upgrading the services of the marine environment, its resources and the cultural heritage in the most sustainable way.• Improvement of the employ ability skills related to fisheries related tourism and competences of professionals planning to choose a career path in this field;• Increased awareness of pesca-tourism potential and increased visibility and attractiveness of blue career opportunities not only for professionals but for the wider public;• Increase of the awareness of benefits from the modernisation and transformation of the pescatourism sector for society and the local economies;• Building and strengthening partnerships between the organisations participating in the project; This project will also include 4 transnational project meetings that will contribute to the preparation, implementation and evaluation phase of the project. All information gathered and the promotion of the project itself will then be uploaded on the Gateway. Multiplier events and a joint staff training are also foreseen. Furthermore, the Consortium will deliver an Action Plan for presenting the project results offered for further valorisation of PESCAVET and specific recommendations for further development of new training courses and the PESCAVET Gateway sustainability.Considering that the identified challenges and needs regard not only the participating countries in specific, but the majority of EU countries and that the efforts of the EC targeting the maritime sector aim the whole of the EU, the aim of the project should be treated trans nationally.