THE CARPATHIAN NARROW-GAUGE RAILWAYS - A JOURNEY IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CARPATHIAN FOREST RAILWAYS

The project focuses on two areas in the Eastern Carpathians, associated with the history and location of preserved historical forest narrow-gauge railways in Majdan (PL) and Vyhoda (UA). For both areas, the history of narrow-gauge railways and the potential utilization of this heritage represent a significant but underutilized tourism potential. One of the main challenges of this project is the INSUFFICIENT USE OF THE TOURIST POTENTIAL FOR LOCAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. As a result, both areas experience economic stagnation, an aging population (high youth migration, negative birth rate), and often unemployment. Tourism development presents a great opportunity, and therefore, innovative actions need to be taken to increase the average length of stay and tourism revenues. To achieve this, both areas need to implement innovative measures and expand, enhance, and integrate their offerings through cross-border cooperation. The overall objective of the project is to increase the role of tourism based on the endogenous historical and cultural potential in the development of Polish-Ukrainian border areas in the Eastern Carpathians. The expected changes that the project will bring about include: - Facilitating cooperation and exchange of experience between project partners and surrounding communities in cross-border areas to develop and promote a common, integrated offer of sustainable tourism. - Expanding and enhancing the offerings of project partners. - Creating a cohesive image by equipping public spaces and narrow-gauge railway station areas in Majdan and Vyhoda in a way that enhances the quality of these places as tourist attractions while respecting their history and the value of the surrounding nature. These changes will be achieved through investment and soft measures implemented in the project, such as building innovative infrastructure for the Bieszczady Forest Railway Station in Majdan, introducing alternative forms of pro-ecological railway and bicycle transport in the Eastern Carpathians, developing visitor infrastructure and walking/cycling routes along the Vyhoda heritage railway route, joint familiarization visits to present an integrated joint tourist offer with the Carpathian Forest Railways logo to travel bloggers and tour operators, cross-border workshops on creating a common integrated tourist offer and joint cross-border festivals promoting local heritage and tourism attractions. The main target groups of the project include institutions related to cultural heritage, operators of tourist attractions, and tourism service providers (approximately 20 entities), travel bloggers, and tourism operators from Ukraine and Poland, local development agencies (3 entities), and representatives of local and regional authorities (6 entities). The project will involve approximately 1,070 participants. The ultimate beneficiaries are enthusiasts of narrow-gauge railways, tourists, residents, and entrepreneurs from the project areas (approximately 140,000 in PL and 80,000 in UA). From a cross-border perspective, both target areas face the challenge of harnessing the untapped economic potential of cross-border tourism by offering visitors a joint tourist offer that includes a cross-border trip to the neighbouring historical railways still in operation in the Eastern Carpathians. Currently, there is a lack of cooperation, joint marketing, and exchange of tourists between partners. This is further exacerbated by a lack of information about tourist attractions, services, and accommodations, leading to a lack of awareness among tourists about the attractions they can experience on the other side of the border. The project will enable both areas to access visitors and tourists from the other side of the border and enter the cross-border tourism market with a joint offer that integrates more diversified and meaningful holiday experiences within a single trip to the heritage railways.