The Blue Flag NOM 2017 was held in Netanya, Israel on October 23-24, 2017 , organised by EcoOcean, NO from host country.  Meeting was chaired by Lourdes Diaz Colón, member of the FEE Board of Directors, with political responsibility for the Blue Flag programme. Great official opening ceremony was on the beach, with children of Netanya holding flags of countries participated.

Attention was at programme activities and developments, as well as sustainable boating tourism operators criteria development and new Blue Flag evaluation requests, presented by Johann Durand.

How to market the Blue Flag programme was presented by Nissim Douek, PR specialist.

Compliance with EU Wastewater Directive and crosscutting issue between this and EU Bathing water Directive is presented and discussed.

Also, Blue Flag Mediterranean week – how to reproduce it as a way for Blue Flag to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, presented by Orly Babitsky, initiated discussion related planning other regional Blue Flag weeks in 2018 around the theme “caring for the Oceans/Seas that unites us”. Presentation about FEE and the Sustainable Development Goals was delivered by Lesley Jones. Blue Flag 30th anniversary celebration and Best practises session was very interesting, in particular Malcolm Powell’s a birthday celebration story: The European Blue Flag transitioning to the International Blue Flag in 2001.

National Operators forum: networking and discussions amongst National Operators is always the value of  NOMs.

Blue Flag Sponsors (Semaphore and AccessRec ) also participated.