Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Programme 2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Date of latest update: 2024-03-26

Description

Description (EN):

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.

Achievements (EN):

Rural lifestyle project was creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations. New attractive and sustainable Rural Lifestyle tourism product was developed – destinations around the Baltic Sea (Estonia – Setomaa historic region, Vana-Võromaa historic region, Mulgimaa historic region, Onion Route – the shores of Lake Peipsi, Soomaa National Park, Lahemaa National Park; Latvia – Abava river valley, Sēlija, North Vidzeme, Gauja National Park; Sweden – Söderhamn; Finland –Åland, Archipelago of Kökar in Åland, Brändö island in Åland, Lappo island in Åland, Jurmo island in Åland, Lohja), altogether 39 new products. The project partnership developed a joint Rural Lifestyle destination and a new brand GORURAL which is very attractive in foreign and domestic tourism markets. First 39 RL products and more than six smaller destinations are promoted via the RL website, printed and digital marketing materials. Regarding the increase in the number of visitors, the target value was 3000 visitors. Due to the different sizes of the regions and other conditions, each pilot region analysed the increased number of visitors as a result of the project according to its own methodology. The project reached and exceeded the set target value with 6555 new RL foreign visitors, and added 83850 domestic visitors.

Website: http://centralbaltic.eu/

Expected Results (EN): R2.1. More sustainable joint natural and cultural heritage based tourist attractions

Expected Outputs (EN):

The project’s main results will be added interest, attractiveness and accessibility of the Central Baltic region as a sustainable tourism destination and increased numbers of visits in the area through: - Introducing/enhancing a coherent SMART network of Rural Lifestyle destinations based on sustainability and the authentic “rural lifestyle” of the region. The region has sufficient similarities in culture, nature, and history to be able to form a coherent destination, while at the same time offering a wide range and diversity to form interesting and exciting cross-border products. Destinations introducing product provision that will be: - Based on authentic rural local lifestyles and which preserves the local natural and cultural heritage and values is able to offer attractive products for FIT tourists marketed jointly as an authentic and sustainable destination in Japanese and European markets. - Packaged according to jointly agreed and unified baseline/criteria, which facilitates the creation of cross-border packages readily and flexibly e.g. to far east customers. - Creation of joint images for each area as a sustainable destination based on their rural lifestyle. The project will support each participating rural area to find their own local strengths from which to build a Rural Lifestyle destination and in co-operation with national tourism boards build sustainable destination joint imagery suited to each tourism market. The network, based on the rural areas selected to the project as “Rural Lifestyle regions” will be open and further expanded during the project as well as after the project’s lifespan. In order to maintain the sustainability of the Rural Lifestyle destination, the connection to the tourism markets as well as supply channels and the visibility in the markets will be established during the project.

Thematic information

Tourism Rural and peripheral development

Specific Objective: Natural and cultural resources developed into sustainable tourist attractions

Thematic Objective: (06) preserving and protecting the environment and promoting resource efficiency by:

Investment Priority: (06c) Conserving, protecting, promoting and developing natural and cultural heritage

Partners (8)

Lead Partner: Eesti Maaülikool

Department: Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Address: Kreutzwaldi 5, 51006 Tartu, Estonia

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.emu.ee

Total budget: EUR 261 770.00

ERDF budget: EUR 222 504.50

Gaujas Nacionālā parka tūrisma biedrība

Name: Gaujas Nacionālā parka tūrisma biedrība

Department: N/A

Address: Ausekla str. 6, LV-2150 Sigulda, Latvia

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.entergauja.com

Total budget: EUR 80 507.47

ERDF budget: EUR 68 431.35

Latvijas lauku tūrisma asociācija “Lauku ceļotājs”

Name: Latvijas lauku tūrisma asociācija “Lauku ceļotājs”

Department: N/A

Address: Kalnciema 40, LV-1046 Riga, Latvia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.celotajs.lv

Total budget: EUR 205 167.25

ERDF budget: EUR 174 392.16

Eesti Maaturism MTÜ

Name: Eesti Maaturism MTÜ

Department: N/A

Address: J.Vilmsi 53g, 10147 Tallinn, Estonia

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.maaturism.ee

Total budget: EUR 130 260.00

ERDF budget: EUR 110 721.00

Företagsam Skärgård

Name: Företagsam Skärgård

Department: N/A

Address: Styrmansgatan 10, 22100 Mariehamn, Pb 7, AX-22101 MARIEHAMN, Finland

Legal status: private

Website: http://www.skargarden.ax

Total budget: EUR 103 162.50

ERDF budget: EUR 77 371.88

Söderhamns kommun

Name: Söderhamns kommun

Department: Business department

Address: Västra Storgatan 16-18, 82680 Söderhamn, Sweden

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.soderhamn.se

Total budget: EUR 107 976.65

ERDF budget: EUR 80 982.49

Lohjan kaupunki

Name: Lohjan kaupunki

Department: N/A

Address: Karstuntie 4, 8100 Lohja, Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.visitlohja.fi

Total budget: EUR 114 339.00

ERDF budget: EUR 85 754.25

Helsingin yliopisto Ruralia-instituutti

Name: Helsingin yliopisto Ruralia-instituutti

Department: Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry

Address: Yliopistonkatu 4, 14 Helsingin yliopisto (Helsinki), Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.helsinki.fi/ruralia

Total budget: EUR 129 454.95

ERDF budget: EUR 97 091.21

Partners map

Partners and Projects info

Gauja National Park Tourism Association

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

Latvian Country Tourism Association “Lauku ceļotājs”

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

NGO Estonian Rural Tourism

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

Enterprising Archipelago

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

Söderhamn municipality

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

City of Lohja

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

Helsingin yliopisto Ruralia-instituutti

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Partners and Projects info

Estonian University of Life Sciences

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Project acronym: Rural Lifestyle

Project start date: 2020-06-01

Project end date: 2022-12-31

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 1 132 637.82

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 917 248.84

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 917 248.84.

Documents

Documents on this project are listed below, and organised by category. Please note field "Data source", attached to each document. Keep.eu users are free to use these documents as long as they mention the data source and keep.eu.

Studies / surveys

Guidebook for Rural Lifestyle destination and product development

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://www.celotajs.lv/en/project/30/project?16

Publication date: 2023-08-28

Document date: 2022-12-31

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A Finland - Estonia - Latvia - Sweden (Central Baltic)

Latest month of project-partner-call data publication

2023-11

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

137 / 137 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

663 / 663 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme. Achievements were retrieved by Interact from the Programme website (http://centralbaltic.eu/), or a website directly linked from it, on 2021-11-08, 2023-01-12 and 2024-03-08.

The financial data featured in keep.eu for this programme, it's projects and its partners is not exact and should be taken as a reference only.

Languages

Contact Form

Creating attractive rural lifestyle destinations

Description

Thematic information

Partners (8)

Partners map

Summary

Documents

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Disclaimer