Development of capacities of rural businesses to design and promote sustainable tourism products based on intangible cultural heritage Erasmus Project

Project Title

Development of capacities of rural businesses to design and promote sustainable tourism products based on intangible cultural heritage

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Rural development and urbanisation; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Rural tourism supports about 1 million direct and indirect jobs in Europe, mostly in small rural companies. It’s hard to overemphasize the importance to the tourism sector in general; the rural tourism addresses the village depopulation issues, encourages environmental conservation and enhancement, helps retain “traditional” skills, it can be a great tool for safeguarding and promoting cultural heritage and enrich the lives of enormous numbers of people. This sector – as well as tourism in general – was generally hit by the effects of the COVID however also experiencing a faster recovery due to foreign travel restrictions.

As COVID also proved there is much to be done to improve competitiveness and sustainability of the small businesses operating in rural areas. While many of them offer their services and also their heart to the tourists, the quality standards are of a varying degree and only rarely a complete tourist product can be offered. There is a clear need for small rural businesses to become more professional in their marketing efforts, enhance cooperation and learn how to use the valuable unique resources of their region to enrich their offering and create memorable tourist experiences.

The STORIE project aims to improve the competitiveness of small rural companies by developing their skills and capacities to design and promote sustainable tourism products based on intangible cultural heritage, offering an online (e-)learning tool which is most practical during lockdowns.

The objectives of STORIE included the sharing best practices and methodologies for the development of tourism product design and marketing skills; adaptation and update of existing training programmes to create a new, tailored learning programme and a multilingual online learning tool on product design and marketing in rural tourism; encouragement of cooperation among small rural companies and facilitation of the development of local business communities; promotion of responsible use of intangible cultural heritage to enrich local tourism products; validation in partner countries; dissemination and preparation of appropriate mechanisms/processes for further exploitation of project results.

The project produced three main Intellectual Outputs. The STORIE Learning Programme and Learning Tool is available in Hungarian, Spanish, Greek, Lithuanian, Croatian and English, and was tested and validated in all project countries. The third Output – STORIE Insights and Experiences – a set of targeted guidelines – built on the first two outcomes available in all partner languages and English.

The STORIE Learning Programme and Tool focused on the knowledge and skills most needed by people in small rural companies related to tourism sector and will include different types of learning resources and tools – the more “traditional” reading resources will be supported by case studies and introductory videos, exercises and – ideally, if no restrictions applied – face-to-face interaction. An innovative concept was employed: the so-called single-concept learning or “thin slicing”. which focuses on one behavior change, one narrow concept and one slim goal at a time, delivering a powerful impact with limited information. The Guidelines for tourism product design and marketing made of small e-learning “snacks” that demonstrate how specific skill works in different situations.
This made e-learning more attractive and accessible for the target group – 4 Modules including 21 Units, altogether 20 hours of learning material are available in the app (under Windows and Android) after registration here: http://projectstorie.eu/#supports. The Modules are: 1. Intangible cultural heritage in tourism, 2. Marketing, 3. E-marketing and social media, 4. Creativity techniques. Each Unit has 4 parts: 1. Theory – summarizes the most important professional basics, 2. Further reading suggestions – help you gain additional knowledge, 3. Case study – presents best practice, 4. Self-reflective questions – help to test your acquired knowledge. The learning experience was integrated into a blended learning intervention, which provides multiple learning paths for the participants. The Tool was tested in each country via product club events and was finetuned as a result. The app has a very flexible application: each Unit can be completed independently and there is no need to learn all the Units and you may stop, exit the app and when you enter you may continue from the same part.

The project was implemented by 7 partners with various background from 5 European countries (Hungary, Croatia, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania). The results and outputs of the project will allow the partners to open up new areas for training and support services. It is expected the results of project can “exported” to the other geographical areas of Europe.

Please visit us online: www.projectstorie.eu (also to use the e-learning materials), https://www.facebook.com/projectstorie/.

Project Website

http://projectstorie.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 238474 Eur

Project Coordinator

VELENCEI-TAVI FEJLESZTESI NONPROFITKORLATOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Kontakt Szervezetfejleszto es Tanacsado Kft
• Razvojna agencija VTA
• LIETUVOS KAIMO TURIZMO ASOCIACIJA
• EOLAS S.L.
• Learning Detours V.A. Ltd
• Interregió Fórum Egyesület