Welcome to the Watertour! Finland - Germany - Hungary - Ireland

Welcome to WATERTOUR!

Discover:

Finland - the land of thousands of lakes

Germany - with its various rivers

Hungary - with the beauty of the mountains

Ireland - the green country

Portugal - the sunny land in the bosom of Atlantic Ocean

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Watertour Newsletter - November 2004

Welcome to the Interreg III C operation WaterTour !

Nov 2004 / 1

Main topics of the first issue of the newsletter entitled WaterTour Issues are technical and basic infor-mation about the project “WaterTour – Developing Improvement of competitiveness of SMEs and water-tourism regions by innovative strategies and technologies“. Further, we would like to present the attached regions.

In future the WaterTour Issues will be published regularly. The intention is to present an overview about the activities in the partner regions, the progress and news from the international project work as well as results from workshops and conferences to all project members and interested persons.

Background of the operation

Tourism activities in, at and around water and waterways are a growing tourism sector in Europe. Although the potential of the market is not yet entirely utilized. The varity and the nature potential along side of canals, rivers and lakes offer a great potential for tourism activities. On the other hand the expectation and desire of tourists becoming more and more so-phisticated and service oriented. A trend to be kept in mind for the devel-opment process targeting in strengthening, coordinating and networking of tourism products and activities as well as improving the quality and service management of infrastructure.

A wide range of regions in Europe promoting water tourism. The competi-tion is high even of the diversity in nature, water tourism activities, sport activities, historical sights, cultural offers and infrastructural equipment.

Objectives of WaterTour

The overall objective of the operation is to strengthen the economic situa-tion and competetiveness of SMEs involved in water based tourism activi-ties by following subojectives:

► access to know-how, experiences and best practises by establish-ing intra-regional and inter-regional co-operations between com-munities and SMEs in the partnerregions

► applying policies and strategies to ensure the development of qual-ity infrastructure to enable the development of sustainable water based tourism activities whilst taking cognisance of the environ-ment

► developing tools and methods to market the regions for both the internal market of the country and the European market

► improving regional information systems

Project Partner

The project activities will be executed by the five partners from Germany, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Hungary.

Project Finances

On the 2nd of July 2004 the project application “WaterTour – Developing Improvement of competitiveness of SMEs and watertourism regions by innovative strategies and technologies“ was chosen as well as nine others out of 33 applications by the „Interreg IIIC North Monitoring and Steering Committee“.

WaterTour will be funded within the Interreg IIIC programme (EU) with a volume of 562.989,00 EURO. The own contribution of the partners is 249.811,00 EURO. The project will run for 36 months and will end in the year 2007.

1. International project meeting of WaterTour
in the City of Greifswald, Vorpommern

The Regional Tourism Board of Greifswald was hosting the project partners from 3rd until 5th of November 2004 in the City of Greifswald – in the most north-eastern part of Germany.

Besides the project meeting of the steering committee the guests took part in an excursion to different water tourism offers and attractions of the region Vorpommern. Special attention were payed to the small business of canoe rental and ship yard, a marina at the coast side and the unique countryside along the river Peene.

According to the participants of the meeting, the different partner regions do have a great deal in common. Houseboat, canoe and angeling tourism exists in all regions. As well problems are alike. For example the conflict between tourism utilization and nature conservation in protected areas or the point of beeing a transit region for tourists passing by. The same questions to be an-swered in all regions: How can tourists be encouraged staying longer?

At the canue rental station at the river Peene

Within the first discussion rounds the target of the operation - developing activities for the partner regions by exchanging know-how and experiences - is already more specific. In the comming-up project period all partners will choose model projects and activities to be implemented within their region. Vorpommern would like to develop a landing stage at the river Peene for house boats and include specific initiatives like the project „Vorpommersche Dorfstraße”, a tourism thematical route along the river Peene. Portugal will focus on the connection of water tourism activities and environmental educ-tion with the development of an “Code of good behaviour” for protected ar-eas. Ireland is targeting in a database of tourism enterprises and institutions alongside their river and navigation systems. The Finish city of Lahti is em-phasise on the connection of waterside and landside tourism activities to new target group oriented tourism products. Hungary would like to improve the quality in tourism services.

Finally a handbook will comprise the results and present transferable guide-lines to tourism stakeholders in the partner regions. The booklet will be pro-duced in German, English, Portugese, Hungarian and Finish language.

Participants of the first international meeting ->