Developing Rural Tourism and Common Marketing in the Baltic Sea Area

The objective of the project is to increase international co-operation, networking and know-how, build up concrete joint actions and to bring added value for rural tourism. The project will strengthen the participants’ basic knowledge and business know-how. New networks will promote. Internationalisation and transmit new ideas between Leader areas. These measures will hopefully have a positive effect on the demand of traveling services and jobs in the touristic sector. The project is aiming to develop international marketing of small enterprises to raise the quality to the European level. As the tourist flows are increasing and business is growing, the Leader areas will get more national and international attention and visibility. Potential themes and concepts for touristic service

Varsin Hyvä ry is a Finnish Leader Action Group and an association working for rural well-being in Southwest Finland. The aims are promoting business activities, creating jobs and increasing travel and recreational activities. Our diversified area of operations is located in Turku region, in marine environment with river valleys, woods and unique archipelago. In May we started a pre-study phase investigating the needs and desires of companies, which are operating in the tourism sector. The results and recommendations of previous studies will also be studied in order to define the actions and measures in the coming project. We are now targeting the international field of operation and are looking for collaboration partners for an international project, which we are planning in the Baltic.

The targets, actions and co-partners of the international project will be defined on the basis of the preliminary study. The main target is to create international contacts and permanent co-operative actions for developing local culture, nature and adventure tourism in rural areas. Open courses and seminars for entrepreneurs, counseling for increasing intercultural know-how will be the main measures for achieving the targets. Co-operation with tourism institutes and exchange of students could also be included in the project.The purpose of the project is to increase knowledge of international trends and to support international networks and permanent interaction of the participants. The project’s main role is in starting the co-operation: spreading best practices from one country to another

We are looking for partner/partners with similar interests in the Baltic Sea area (Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and/or Sweden). The pre-study phase of our project will last till September 2012. During this period we will make a study in tourism sector to decide on the concrete measures to be taken, find the Finnish partners and international LAG(s). The main project on international level should be started in the beginning of 2013. We are also interested in co-operation without official LAG agreements, while the time in this funding period is limited. We are now starting to find small companies in the touristic branch, which are willing to develop their marketing and services for international markets.

Sweden, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia

Baltic Sea Region

Swedish, German, English, Finnish

Culture, Economy, Leisure, Nature/environment/land management, Products(food), Tourism

12/09/2012