As much as any cross‐border destination may be an attractive notion, it clearly requires more profound research as both theoretical and practical research seems hardly satisfactory. This paper will attempt to present tourism development of the cross‐border region of Bug, consisting of three national components: Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian. There are both advantages and disadvantages resulting from the fact that one part of the destination belongs to the European Union (EU) and the other does not. The authors analyse the potential of the Euroregion and present main actors responsible for the destination development. Based on both desk and field research, special attention is given to the model of tourism organisation. The theory of tourism transformation is carefully scrutinised. One can distinguish 4 stages of this process, namely: preparation, creation, verification, gratification (Studzieniecki 2000, p127).

The aim of this paper is to analyse the financial determinants of the development of European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTCs) operating in Europe. This work focuses on European funds, with particular consideration of the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) funds. Literature research on the evolution of cohesion policy has been conducted. A new instrument has been described, i.e. the EGTC, based on analysis of legal documents. This paper also seeks to assess the effectiveness of this instrument. For this purpose, the size and structure of 65 EGTC budgets for two programming periods (2007-2013 and 2014-2020) have been analysed. The size of the budgets was compared with the scope of EGTC operations. Numerous barriers related to the acquisition and management of EU funds have been identified. It has been found that the groupings which operate in Central and Eastern Europe, in particular those located on the Hungarian border, were in the most difficult situation. Despite the financial support from the Hungarian government, in most cases these groupings did not manage to complete the projects financed by ETC funds 65 EGTCs obtained slightly more than 0.1% of ETC funds. The budget of a statistical EGTC was EUR 1 million; however, most of these groupings had a budget which was smaller than EUR 100,000. The implementation of statutory tasks was challenging with such small budgets. With few exceptions, this instrument turned out to be moderately effective. As regards the role which this instrument is to play in cohesion policy, it should be further improved.