Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Closed

There is market demand for attractive tourism destinations that can respond to the latest travel trends: authentic lifestyle & sustainability. This is potentially a particular strength for rural tourism in the CB region where there is rising demand & shortage of accessible supply; it has several specialities relating to the authentic rural lifestyle e.g. involving visitors in everyday life & activities: voluntary work camps, hands-on handicraft & cooking workshops, farming, berry & mushroom picking, fishing, hunting, home visits, pop-up cafe, catering. Japanese market experts helped forge direct market links with TAs & TOs to increase Japanese tourist visits to the CB region & this project aims to create new opportunities for Asian and European tourists to Rural Lifestyle (RL) destinations. To increase the accessibility of these tourism opportunities a cluster of RL destinations ( Söderhamn, Sweden; Aland & Lohja, Finland; Estonia; Latvia) will be created offering sufficient product provision to attract overseas tourists & travel agencies & enable local tour operators to approach their overseas counterparts. Key project outputs will be added interest, attractiveness & accessibility of the CB region as a sustainable tourism destination & increased number of visits in the area through: - A coherent SMART network of RL destinations based on sustainability & the authentic RL of the region. - Destinations introducing product provision that will be based on authentic rural local lifestyles offer attractive products for FIT tourists is marketed jointly as an authentic & sustainable destination, & facilitates the creation of cross-border packages readily & flexibly. - Creation of joint images for each area as a sustainable destination based on their RL. - The network of “RL Destinations" will be open & further expanded during & after the project. Decision making at the local community minimizes tourism’s neg. impact & ensures econ. vitality & ecol. sustainability.

Medium