Brief history of the CHARTS Project

Culture & Heritage are important factors for sustainable development, contributing to protection of natural and cultural heritage, extension of tourism period, increase in the awareness of tourists and host communities, regional GDP and multiplier effect. There is hence a need to enrich regional policies with culture and heritage added value for sustainability.

 

The previous INTERREG IIIC Operation ECTN, the INTERREG IIIB CADSES Project CHIRON, and the INTERREG IIIC CultMark Operation have produced several outputs and relevant Good practices identified and piloted, with substantial results which need to be further exploited and transfered.

 

ECTN especially highlighted the need to monitor the impact of cultural tourists, to develop effective partnerships and the need for an integrated approach to management of destinations.

 

CHIRON delivered spatial strategy plans for the development and promotion of cultural tourism, innovative forms of interpretation, with enhanced visitor information, Establishing Visitor Information Centres for Cultural Tourism development) & production of multi-lingual audiovisual multi-media materials. 

 

The CultMark IIIC Operation brings into this partnership the Good Practice in Place Marketing, which is very suitable tool for cultural tourism destinations.

 

Key partners of the above three previous projects came together in this project proposal to share the Good Practices, capitalise the results and achieve a sustainable approach to heritage and cultural tourism destinations through exchange of knowledge and experiences, aiming towards more effective regional policy and sustainable tourism strategy development. 

 

The partners met twice, in Dublin & Athens, and attended the EU Inter-Regional cooperation forum, the European Tourism Forum in Brussels, while participating in the Conferences of the ECTN (Turku, FI) and exchanging views regularly also using the new media (blogging, social networks, etc) and communication via email & teleconferencing.

 

The partners' regions are keen to exchange & accept policy methodologies for cultural tourism destinations, focusing on the added value for sustainable development and cohesion, involving all stakeholders.