There are many other (European) initiatives focused on promoting cultural tourism in rural areas. The following is a list of interesting links, project information, and further advice for those wishing to engage and network their respective offers. If you are also offering a project or an initiative, just leave a message in the comments section below:
INSIDE-T
INSIDE-T is looking to promote intergenerational learning and the development of professional skills in young adults and unemployed women, as well as social sustainability in tourism in low density territories (i.e., rural areas). Aligned with this, INSIDE-T aims at improving the potentially negative social and economic outlook of those same areas.
The project is intended for VET providers and trainers, animators, as well as social educators who help people overcome unemployment. Priority is given to young adults, especially women, be they graduates or not, who want to try new ways of life in rural areas.
CULTURWB
CULTUREWB targets the need to strengthen the cultural tourism industry development in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Montenegro, so as to create and improve strategies for the development of cultural tourism. The aim is to address their importance and raise awareness of the industry’s pivotal role in safeguarding the rich cultural heritage in those regions and beyond.
Further objectives are:
- Conduct research on required competences of staff in the cultural tourism industry;
- Develop a life long learning programme;
- Develop an interdisciplinary Master program that consolidates the field of tourism management, culture & heritage by enabling students to acquire the required qualifications for professional career management of cultural aspects of tourism and heritage;
- Connect the tourism industries of non-EU countries and prepare each WB partner country for the EU integration.
Vector
VECTOR has the mission to define a professional profile of “Destination Manager” (DM) that is capable of proposing strategies aiming at managing, enhancing and promoting destinations in an integrated perspective. By using the approach of creating an OER (Open Educational Resource) and of implementing a complete DM training curriculum evaluated and recognized through the ECVET system, VECTOR project aims to have both a short term and a medium/long term impact.
In the short term, it will impact students, VETs, SMEs and Public bodies thanks to the availability of the new DM curriculum. In the medium and long term, the whole system will benefit from the competences required in a changing industry like tourism, in order to identify and fill gaps, ensuring a better match with sector needs.
It is expected that VECTOR will bring further improvements, so that tourism employees better fit into the market needs, increasing the overall quality of the sector. The consortium is constituted by 12 partners belonging to three countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain). The project started in November 2015 and will last for 3 years.
In this sense, the project aims at defining a highly skilled professional profile of a so-called Destination Manager. A profile that is capable of proposing strategies aiming at managing, enhancing and promoting tourist destinations in an integrated perspective. Secondly, to develop a joint training curriculum, defining the minimum requirements of the course according with the ECVET standards (learning outcomes, units of learning outcomes approach, etc.) with the objective to decrease the shortage of qualified professionals in the tourism sector. Please contact marco.scerbo@unifi.it if you wish to receive further information, or look up http://www.vector-tourism.net.
“Destination as a stage – how does cultural tourism make rural regions successful?”
This German initiative provides tour operators in rural areas with a set of recommendations, checklists and best practice examples for optimizing supply and marketing in cultural tourism. In a second step the initiative seeks to improve the concrete implementation competence of the actors involved. By way of example, these solutions and implementation aids to cultural tourism are shown, which in the sense of an actively lived regional identity can be the success factor and driver for an entire region.
A list of useful references …
- Armin Klein, Yvonne Pröbstle, Thomas Schmidt-Ott (Hg.): “Kulturtourismus für alle?” Neue Strategien für einen Wachstumsmarkt, 2017
- Karin Drda-Kühn: “Kulturtourismus – Megatrend und Jobmotor für Städte und Regionen”, in: ARTikel_Ausgabe 9, S. 11 – 12
- Karin Drda-Kühn: “Take it or Leave it? Expectations, frustrations and gratifications of visitors at religious heritage sites”, in: MM Nieuws, Dossier “Religious Heritage and Tourism”, 12/2016, http://www.mmnieuws.nl
- Karin Drda-Kühn: “Kulturtourismus – Für den ländlichen Raum noch zu entdecken”, in: Zukunftsinitiative Rheinland-Pfalz (ZIRP) und Troeger-Weiß, Gabi (Hrsg): “Starke Wirtschaft – Starke Regionen. Gute Aussichten für das Land“, Mainz 2015 (Die Publikation kann per E-MaiL bei der ZIRP bestellt werden.)
- Karin Drda-Kühn: “Regionalentwicklung und Kulturtourismus: ökonomisches Potenzial (kultur-)touristischer Netzwerke für strukturschwache Räume”, in: Buschmann, Lara, Kolbitz, Lina Lisa (Hrsg.): “Kulturtourismus im ländlichen Raum”, Begleitpublikation zum 1. Symposium im KLOSTERLAND, veranstaltet durch KLOSTERLAND | Deutsch-Polnisches Klosternetzwerk, Berlin 03/2013; Download: http://www.klosterland.de/Mediencenter
- Karin Drda-Kühn / Alexander Marschall: “Mut zum Experiment – soziale Netzwerke als Chance für den Kulturtourismus im ländlichen Raum”, in: Kagermeier, Andreas / Raab, Fanny: “Wettbewerbsvorteil Kulturtourismus – Innovative Strategien und Produkte“, Erich Schmidt Verlag 2010
- Elena Paschinger: “The Creative Traveler’s Handbook“, Full Flight Press