The exploration stage began in January 2007 and ended in December of the same year. 
This first stage marked the launching of the project on an international level and the start of relations with PACA and Catalonia.

The aims of the Exploration stage were to:

• analyse supply and demand trends in the tourism sector on a domestic and regional level in order to place the strategic analysis in context
• analyse the competitive position of the 6 regions and establish a comparison of them
• study the behaviour of small-medium sized companies of PACA and Catalonia
• identify good practices and new models for innovation and development in the tourism sector

The target group of the 179 small-medium sized companies being analysed was built on the active collaboration of 9 institutional partners that were in turn interviewed and involved in the investigation.  The investigation involved scrutiny of financial statements and in-depth interviews aimed at discovering the quantity of intangible investments and their effect  on results achieved by companies.

The target group of the 179 small-medium sized tourist companies analysed:

•  131 small and 48 medium, 97 hotels and 86 Tour Operators/Agents divided into

- 93 small-medium companies in PACA (50 hotels, 43 Tour Operators/Agents, 69 small and 24 medium companies)
- 86 small-medium sized companies in Catalonia (47 hotel, 39 Tour Operators/Agents, 62 small and 24 medium companies)

• The target of the PACA companies (93) represents 37,7% of the total of the 247  small and medium sized companies of the region

• The target of the Catalonia companies (86) represents 17,2% of the total of the 500 small and medium sized companies of the region

•  The 48 K Factor samples (24 per region) represent 90% of the total medium sized companies of PACA and Catalonia

•  150 took part in the analysis of financial statement and 91 of those took part in in-depth interviews

The Subjects involved in the exploration phase are:

•   5 Political and economic institutions of Europe from Provence-Alpes-Cote-D'Azur- PACA (France):

- CRCI - Chambre Regionale de Commerce et d'Industrie (Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry)
- CRT - Comité Régional de Tourisme (Regional Tourist Committee)
- Assessorato al turismo Regione PACA (Tourism Councillorship of PACA)
- UMIH - Union des Métiers et des Industries de l'Hôtellerie (Regional Federation of trade and Hotel Industry)
Union of Trades and Industries of Hotel trade

• 4 Political and economic institutions of Europe from Catalonia (Spain):

- CCB - Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona (Barcelona Chamber of Commerce)
- Fomento del Trabajo Nacional - Confederación Empresarial de Cataluña (Confederation of enterprise of Catalonia)
- Observatori de Turisme (Tourist Observatory)
- Turisme de Catalunya (Turism of Catalonia)

• 4 airport societies:

- Nice and Marseille (PACA)
- Barcelona and Girona (Catalonia)

• 8 agroindustrial SME regarded as successful cases of tourist integration:

- 4 in PACA 
- 4 in Catalonia

The first stage of research concluded by demonstrating that companies having the best performance in  PACA and Catalonia regions are those which invest most in intangible factors such as, for example, training, marketing, research and development of new products, promotions, participation at trade fairs, etc.