Development and promotion of small ethno-cultural regions as tourism destinations

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Project´s background: In Estonia and Latvia there are four unique regions – Setomaa, Kihnu, Suiti and Liv coast – where old cultural traditions are kept alive as part of everyday life of local people. These old traditions, including singing and dancing traditions, national costumes, celebration of religious and traditional holidays, food and handicraft traditions, old-Võrumaa smoke-sauna tradition etc. are reasons why three of regions (Setomaa, Kihnu and Suiti) are included to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Livi coast area, which includes 12 villages, is making efforts to apply to the list. However, the potential of unique cultural heritage and worldwide known UNESCO-label in promotion of those regions as tourism destination has been underused both in domestic and foreign markets. Cross-border nature: Shared knowledge and experiences within the project, joint development of routes and tour packages in 4 regions and joint marketing is essential for creation of one set of tourism product based on living cultural heritage of small ethno-culture regions recognized by UNESCO. Involvement of all UNESCO-regions from Estonia and Latvia gives better possibilities to promote these regions, especially in foreign markets. Identifying common marketing message and slogan and promoting the regions together enables to achieve more attention and better results in visitors’ numbers. Introducing involved regions also in Estonia and Latvia will increase cross-border tourism activity. Objective: The aim of the project is to create a tourism product involving 4 small ethnic culture regions based on the uniqueness of living heritage cultures recognized by UNESCO. By offering a joint holistic and attractive tourism product it is possible for the visitors to acquire and to experience genuine cultural heritage, which is rare to find in nowadays world. As a result of the project, partners have composed unique tourism product and marketing themes which combine local cultural heritage, services offered by local tourism businesses and attractive sites to an integrated tourism offer. Main activities: Product development. Developing 4 regional tourism routes by combining tourism attractions/sites and services/products offered by local tourism businesses, museums etc. Specific tour packages are created for individuals and small groups highlighting the various aspects of cultural heritage (e.g., food, traditional singing, seasonal festivities & celebrations, handicrafts, etc.). The goal is to combine efforts in all sectors for building genuine cultural heritage product (incl., strong common visual identity and message), thus the involvement and cooperation in all levels (private, NGO, municipality) is essential. Tourism service providers receive new knowledge about using local heritage and traditions in design of their services through seminars, practical workshops and joint handbooks. Important part of the product development is to initiate or strengthen the events introducing local food traditions to visitors as the culinary tourism is one of the most rapidly increasing tourism trend in Europe. Small-scale investments are made to 8 heritage sites in order to increase the quality and range of tourism services. The sites are locating in: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1c1HxkWR6Pxc9q6ds7fjO4ibraH0. In order to achieve that, relevant workshops and practical product and destination development seminars will be organized for tourism businesses, organizations and local municipalities involved in project implementation. Mutual study tours are organized for sharing best practises, gathering ideas and strengthen cooperation. Based on project experience practical joint guidelines on using ethno cultural heritage and UNESCO label in tourism destination development and service design with practical tips will be composed. Effective use of UNESCO-label in promotion of regions as tourism destination. Joint workshops (incl. foreign experts) and conferences introducing the benefits and opportunities of using UNESCO label will be organized for finding common solutions for project regions to use it in tourism destination marketing. The conferences will handle topics like how to conserve and enliven cultural heritage of small ethnic groups, how to explain and integrate the heritage in modern world etc. Partners create joint slogan and selling messages for making UNESCO-label more accessible and understandable for visitors, which will be used uniformly in marketing and communication. Open workshops introduce cultural heritage (e.g. Seto leelo, Võrumaa smoke sauna) to wider public. Livi region will use the experience of other 3 regions in order to prepare and submit the application to Latvian national (and in case of success) to international UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage . Joint thematic booklets introducing traditional clothes and religious holidays to visitors having deeper interest in local heritage culture will be composed. Partners organize joint study tour for benchmarking to Hungary to learn from the best experience in using UNESCO-label in tourism destination development. Marketing and communication. Partners produce marketing materials (joint tourism brochure, route leaflets, travel guides, joint event calendar, visitors websites etc.), organize international FAM trips and participate in tourism fairs. In order to highlight the most significant and unique features which makes the heritage culture recognizable among others, professional quality photos and video clips will be created. In Kihnu and Livi areas heritage days as public events will be organized for visitors promoting local cultural heritage.

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