Cultural Routes Entrepreneurship and Technologies Enhancement

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The idea of the e-CREATE project was born among European regions who are partly members of the Transromanica and CrossCulTour transnational project network. Together, the partners have identified shortcomings in public policies that on the one hand use significant resources to promote cultural, natural and historic tourism routes but fail on the other hand to enhance the competitiveness of SME tourism promoters along those routes. All partners share the understanding that public policies and instruments need a strong focus on the development of e-skills among tourism related SME in order to enable them to make good use of modern ICT and web-based customer relation tools. Knowing that the anticipated launch of post-2013 structural funds programmes presents a unique opportunity to launch new programmes, e-CREATE key objective is to enhance capacities of competent policy-makers in that respect. Good practices from partner- and other European regions will be capitalised for that purpose. Main activities of e-CREATE henceforth include an assessment and publication of good practices, the realisation of Interregional Capacity Building Workshops and the formulation of Policy Recommendations. Furthermore, the elaboration of Implementation Plans for the participating regions, as well as a Demonstration Project on concrete ICT-applications to promote tourism development will spur the uptake of anticipated new programmes and to mobilise private investments will play an important role. Across all project phases, stakeholders and key actors in rural development and along cultural routes will be involved in the interregional exchange and capacity building process. e-CREATE expected impacts will be to improve knowledge of public policy-makers as well as to increase awareness among tourism related SME. The operation furthermore will result in politically endorsement of implementation plans for the partner regions, improved access to good practices, and the mobilisation of private investments. e-CREATE is implemented by an interregional partnership led by the Ministry of Regional Development and Transport, Saxony-Anhalt (DE). Partners include local and regional public authorities (or institutions acting as public equivalent bodies on their behalf) from 9 EU member states as well as 1 partner from Norway, all of which are responsible for drafting and implementing policies and instruments to promote e-skills in rural tourism development. The partnership is completed by the Transromanica European registered association that leads the project communication and provides a platform for the long-term maintenance of the interregional collaboration between the partner regions.

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