26. November, 2018.
Partners from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia gathered at the 5th Steering Committee meeting and 7th thematic meeting. The meeting took place in Komárno, Slovakia on 22–23 November 2018 and was hosted by the lead partner Pons Danubii EGTC.
Partners were welcomed by Zoltán Bara from Pons Danubii EGTC. The welcome speech was followed by a short presentation of the city of Komárno and the work of Pons Danubii EGTC in the city. The introductory words were followed by the discussion on project management issues and progress of work packages. Project partners were informed about the project performance so far and reminded about the important details regarding the reporting in the last period. Partners presented their actions and plans in the scope of Tour & Picnic events, Michael Meyer from CEEweb and Prof. Ulrike Pröbstl-Haider from BOKU University from Vienna presented the professional publications on the project results and Eva Vovk from the Development Centre of the Heart of Slovenia presented the draft version of the project video. The meeting continued with a strategy building session and discussion on sustainable tourism marketing and promotion, smart tools and methods for coordinated sustainable supply linked to greenways and integrated management schemes. The first day of the meeting was concluded with a guided tour of the city and visit of the fortress. The participants had the opportunity to see the well-preserved remains of the fortification structure, Komárno’s main historical monuments symbolizing both the pride and resilience of this historically important town. On the last day of the meeting, partners discussed pilot action plans. First, an overview of pilot action plans implementation was made. Then partners
presented their pilot activities and its progress. As part of pilot action plan presentations, the hosts organized a presentation of Virtual reality tour of the fortress that was visited the previous day. Partners had the opportunity to try the VR Tour and see how the fortress looked like while it was still in use. Partners officially concluded the meeting with a presentation of planned activities in the forthcoming months.
The final multilateral meeting will be held in Litija and Šmartno pri Litiji, Slovenia at the end of May 2019.
29. October, 2018.
3rd INSiGHTS project newsletter has just been published!
It contains an overview of the most important project activities that have been conducted on the project and partner level in the last implementation period. You can download your NEWSLETTER pdf version and if you are interested to receive the next editions via e-mail please let us know on roberta@lag-sredisnjaistra.hr.
24. October, 2018.
As the key event of the 2018 EUSDR Presidency, Bulgaria and the European Commission, in cooperation with Danube Transnational Programme have jointly organized the 7th Annual EUSDR Forum which was held on 18 – 19 October 2018 in Sofia with more than 900 participants from all over Europe. The main focus of the event was tourism development as a precondition to economic growth and territorial cohesion.
LAG “Central Istria” participated at the Forum as one of the teams representing INSiGHTS partnership. Other than taking part in the sessions covered by the agenda, LAG “Central Istria” focused on presenting different stakeholders with the main objectives and results of the INSiGHTS project as well as discussing future cooperation and follow up possibilities within the topics covered by the project.
The Annual Forum covered topics of particular importance for the Danube region related to preservation of cultural and historical heritage, new technologies and digitalization in the tourism sector, ensuring safety and security in tourism, transport connectivity, and mobility. Issues related to synergy and consistency between macro-regional strategies for achieving the common objectives of the EU and for the future of those strategies after 2020 were referred to as well as the sustainable tourism mobility and security in public spaces which were the topics of two parallel thematic sessions. Within the Annual Forum, a thematic exhibition showcasing projects focusing on tourism and preservation of cultural and natural heritage in the Danube region was organized. The open-air photo exhibition was available for visitors in the period 10-20 October on the “Lover’s Bridge”, next to the venue of the Annual Forum – the National Palace of Culture.
23. October, 2018.
As part of the implementation of the INSiGHTS project from the Danube Transnational Programme, LAG “Central Istria” organized a recreational cycling tour “From Raft to Raft” on October 20 in Tinjan. The guided tour was held as part of the manifestation of ISAP – the International Prosciutto Fair.
The tour was organized in the form of project Tour & Picnic event with the goal of promoting a healthy lifestyle and presenting the INSiGHTS project, its activities and results. Participants were also able to, for the first time, use the interactive map developed within the project. Besides the usual data on the included trails, the map was designed to provide information on the additional content on and close to the trails such as numerous cultural facilities, natural beauties and gastronomic offer. The interactive map covers the area of three touristic boards that operate on the area of central Istria, Motovun and Žminj and it is available free of charge on Croatian, English, Italian and German language on the following link: https: //bit.ly/2JnTakf.
After the bicycle, all participants could enjoy a successful local event and the exquisite taste of prosciutto of local and visiting producers. This tour & picnic event showed that recreation, natural heritage and top local products together form the backbone of a unique authentic experience that encourages the development of an area in the direction of sustainable, green tourism, which is ultimately the goal of the INSiGHTS project.
1. October, 2018.
INSiGHTS Regional Stakeholder Empowering workshop related to the pilot implementation as well as strategy implementation, in general, was held on 27 September 2018 in Borut on a rural farm.
The workshop covered the following subjects:
- Finding the best cooperation model between three touristic boards and other stakeholders in the area- improving destination management
- Collaboration on product development – follow up on pilot actions
- Joint branding possibilities and benefits
- Joint marketing and promotion strategy
The workshop was a chance to stress the unique approach of the project in linking the development of regional tourism sectors with sustainable mobility management, heritage protection and overall improvement of life quality through the promotion of green & healthy lifestyle by various means related to active, slow and green tourism. At the same time, the importance of every group of stakeholders in ensuring the durability of the results was also emphasized.
The main result was finding the common ground regarding tourism development. All participants agreed that slow, green and healthy is the right direction, which will preserve the traditional way of life as well as natural and cultural heritage as the most valuable resources of the area. Representatives of touristic boards and local governance, encouraged by the fruitful cooperation on the project, especially developing and implementing pilot actions, expressed their willingness for future joint activities that will be defined in the following period.
More information and concrete conclusions from the workshop are available in the Report.
5. May, 2017.
On Tuesday, May 2 in Pazin, the INSIGHTS project which LAG Central Istria is implementing as one of the project partners as part of the Interreg Danube transnational program was presented to the media. The participants of the conference were Lenka Šajina from Tourist board Žminj, Iva Jeletić Prodan from Tourist board Motovun, Sanja Kantaruti from Tourist board Central Istria and Iva Jekić from LAG Središnja Istra.
The INSiGHTS project, “Integrated Strategies for Slow, Green and Healthy Tourism”, focuses on the development of attractive tourist destinations through the development of strategies focusing on the protection of natural and cultural resources. LAG “Central Istria”, the already mentioned tourist boards as well as the Istrian region – Administrative Department for tourism as an associated partner on the project will work together on the development of a sustainable tourism strategy which will include guidelines for healthy, green and slow tourism.
This is a unique example in which various stakeholders in tourism will cooperate in order to combine fragmented tourist offer and jointly determine the direction of tourism development in central Istria (Pazin, Cerovlje, Gračišće, Lupoglav, Tinjan, Sveti Petar u Šumi, Karojba, Motovun, Sveti Lovreč, Pićan, Žminj).
The implementation result will be the first tourism development strategy for the area of central Istria. In addition, the existing bicycles and tracks in the area will be revised and mapped through the project. The development of pilot tracks is also planned, which will link all important points of natural and cultural heritage and thus make a complete tourist product.
More info about the project can be found on the following link: https://lag-sredisnjaistra.hr/en/projekti/, http://www.interreg-danube.eu/approved-projects/insights.
14. March, 2017.
Fourteen partners from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia have launched the INSiGHTS project – “Integrated Slow, Green and Healthy Tourism Strategies”. The partnership is led by Pons Danubii European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation from Komárno, Slovakia. The 30-months long project (January 2017 – June 2019) was approved within the Interreg Danube Transnational Programme financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). (more…)
