LEADER 2012_Promoting area to potential tourists from urban areas

The LEADER Mittskåne strategy stresses a strong desire to initiate collaborations with other actors, on a regional level, as well as on a national and international level. Two collaborative projects are already initiated within Skåne (south of Sweden), and the manager of the LEADER Mittskåne has been asked to explore opportunities for collaborative projects with one or some of the following: Poland, Scotland, Aland Islands, and Denmark.

As regards Scotland, a possible area of cooperation could be tourism and specific packages for tourists. Scotland is recognized as good at tourism packages. Within LEADER Mittskåne, the project “Mittskåne on the map” initiated an effort to make Mittskåne an attractive destination for tourists. In this work, it would be very positive for Mittskåne to benefit from the experience of how Scotland has worked. Scotland is also skilled at ensuring the quality of tourism work which also would be interesting for Mittskåne to look more closely at.

Denmark is another area of cooperation, the question of how to attract people from the big Cities (Copenhaghen, Maldmo, Lund, etc…) to get to the countryside and the activities han can be offered in rural areas in the middle of Skåne. How do the Danes work with this issue in areas located about an hour’s drive from Copenhagen? Cooperation with Poland could be focused on locally produced food, or how to work to attract visitors from coast to inland areas in Poland. Aland Islands is good at hospitality industry especially regarding small-scale tourism and small scale businesses. This would be of interest to us since the biggest part of our tourism industry and its companies are small scale.

The choice of countries to explore cooperation possibilities with was made by LAGs members at the meeting on 1 December 2011. Poland, Scotland, Aland Islands, and Denmark were selected as potential interesting partners.

Community development, New technologies and know-how, Tourism