1) Local tourism products
1.1. Mapping and selection of local marketable tourism products
This is the first activity that will be conducted, after setting up the project structure. The project staff and the four partner LAGs will engage themselves into mobilising all relevant stakeholders in the municipalities so they come up with proposals about tourism products with market potential. For this reason, a workshop in each municipality will be organized (four in total), where brief information about the project will be provided as well as the expected outcomes of the workshop. The workshop should end with a list of all potential products.
After this, experts in tourism and local economic development will be engaged to review the list, visit places, meet and discuss with relevant people, consider strengths and weaknesses and conceptualize the tourism products. They should prepare product concepts containing all necessary information about the products that should be communicated with the LAGs and other local stakeholders as a basis for selection of those that will be developed.
The last step herein is the actual selection. Each LAG will organize a workshop in its municipality, present the product concepts and will prioritize the products. The top rated products will certainly be passed on to the next stage of development, while the second and the third product will be discussed and decided upon from representatives of the four LAGs. A total of 8 products would be the maximum that the project can reasonably work with. That would mean 2 per each municipality, although there might be some exceptions. Here it must be understood by all parties involved, that this is market development project, hence decisions must be made bearing in mind the real market potential of certain product and not the individual wishes by the municipalities nor the preference to reciprocal distribution of products.
1.2. Development of local tourist products
The products that pass the (previous) initial stage of selection, will then undergo product development. The experts will be expected to finalize the conceptualization of the products in a “product development sheet”. The sheet would actually be a marketing plan containing solutions how each product should be marketed, which clients are best to be targeted in the short- and in the long-run, what would be short-term and long-term improvements that need to be made (including specific training needs), what different types of sub-products/services can be offered to increase the income that various businesses may earn (directly such as restaurants, but also indirectly such as local shops, farmers etc.).
These sheets will be finally presented to the LAGs and other relevant stakeholders for feedback (on meetings in each municipality). The feedback will be taken into account for eventual fine tuning.
The project staff will use the product development sheets as a roadmap for organizing the structures around each product. They will cooperate with relevant stakeholders and help them make the necessary preparations for bringing each product to the market.
For example, if chestnut day is being marketed as local event, then the staff together with the LAG and the municipality should make all the necessary arrangements. They may include: selecting a venue for the event, organizing chestnut exhibition and sale, organizing sale of other products and services from the region, ensuring participation of relevant people from the region (the mayors of the municipalities, businesspersons, probably even central government representatives), media coverage and publicity. It is assumed that the organization will be much smoother for the second- or third-year events.
The project very much relies on close cooperation with LAGs and municipalities. This is because taking ownership over these events by local stakeholders will determine the future and the sustainability of these events.
2) Developed capacity for tourism
2.1. Trainings for key stakeholders
This activity foresees several trainings to be organized in each municipality. The training needs will be assessed during the previous two activities (product mapping and development). The focus will be on entrepreneurs and employees in the tourism-related businesses, but also LAG representatives and other relevant actors. It is rather certain that the trainings will include topics such as basics of tourism industry, rural tourism, tourism management, sales skills, relations with tourists, starting a tourism business etc.
Total of 16 trainings are planned, with 4 per each municipality. The trainings are foreseen to last one-day, considering two factors. First, not many people could allocate more than one day of their time for training (especially not entrepreneurs of small businesses, since they are tied to their day-to-day business activities). Second, the trainings are intended to be devised in a rather straightforward manner.
For delivery of tourism related trainings, tourism experts from Macedonia and/or Croatia may be engaged.
2.2. Study visits to similar events in the region
Part of the capacity building will be study visits to similar events in the region. From MEDF experience, study visits are a cost-effective capacity building tool. The idea here is to take representatives of business community and LAGs to see similar initiatives in the neighbouring countries. This way they can actually see on the field how tourism potential is being exploited and establish cooperation and networking with their peers from the region. They should learn from their experiences. For instance, in Macedonia they could visit the traditional Vevcani carnival held in mid January (slowly Vevcani becoming rural breakaway destination year-round) or the grill festival in the municipality of Prilep (thus people from Prilep becoming the most famous grill makers in the country).
The project will also arrange meetings with the mayors in these municipalities, the main organizers, tourism businesses etc. It is planned that a total of four study visits will be organized in the neighbourhood countries with 15 representatives from Kosovo’s economic region West.
3) Promotion of the tourism potential
3.1. Promotion of tourism as alternative economic activity
This activity focuses on the population living in the Kosovo’s economic region West. The rationale is that this population still tends to focus primarily on agriculture and leaving tourism off the economic perspective. Therefore, this activity aims to challenge this mindset by introducing tourism. In a way the activity strives to promote entrepreneurship in tourism as (perceived) unconventional, but prospective sector. This activity is not expected to yield immediate outputs (e.g. rapid increase in number of businesses in tourism), but it is very important to start sensitising people. In time, the numbers of entrepreneurs undertaking business ventures in tourism (of course on a small scale, mainly family businesses) are expected to rise.
The promotion will be a combination of printed material and media campaign. The printed material (brochure) will contain information about tourism in general, about the tourism potential of the region and some hints how local population can benefit from tourism. It will be printed in 5,000 copies and distributed to the population, particularly targeting those individuals that would be more directly exposed to tourism.
The media campaign will be using local media as they are 1) an effective way to reach local population and are 2) inexpensive and flexible. This promotion is expected to be intensive for three months. After that, the promotion will be less frequent (just as a reminder).
The promotion activities will be designed and implemented using the help of an PR expert.
3.2. Promotion of tourist products within Kosovo
Domestic visitors (from within Kosovo) are expected to be the first and the most frequent visitors of the region West. It is they who are most likely to breakaway for weekends or special local events that would be organized. Most of them would be from the capital of Prishtina, including the many foreign people working and living in Kosovo. Therefore, promotion and attracting visitors within Kosovo is essential.
The promotion will use three tools: printed materials, local media and direct promotion.
The printed materials will be rather standard brochures promoting the tourist opportunities that the region West offers. They will be issued in 5,000 copies and distributed by post and by the direct promotion.
The direct promotion includes presentations in four different regions in Kosovo, with Prishtina being certainly among them. These presentations will be on events with high frequency of people (such as fairs).
The media will include commercials and talk shows (possibly at prime time) when the subject will be tourism or the special event organized. The proposal would be to use local, but also nation media, for greater publicity.
3.3. Promotion of tourist products in the region
Visitors from the region are less likely to be the first ones to come (compared with the domestic). However, the market potential is there and should not be underestimated. It must be borne in mind that ethnic Albanian population is living in the countries surrounding Kosovo, hence language and political aversion is not a hindrance factor. Additionally, ethnic Macedonians do not feel safety as an issue to travel to Kosovo. Serbia is a special case. It is an immense market opportunity for the region West (a market of about 10 million people), but political and safety issues reject them from visiting Kosovo.
Nevertheless, the promotion will use media similarly as in the previous activity. In Macedonia it will be also on Macedonian language.
Additionally, two visits of representatives from the region West will also be organized in Albania and Macedonia. These will focus on meetings with tour operators in the countries for attracting students or other one- to two-day excursions to the region of West Kosovo. In Macedonia it could be participation on the Balkan Tourist Fair in Skopje and/or in Ohrid. For Albanian-speaking population the same printed materials will be used.
4) Improved capacity of sectors complementary to tourism
4.1. Small-scale infrastructure improvements, especially in relation to environment
This activity foresees small-scale infrastructure improvements in the following fields: signposting, restoration of lookout spots and forestation.
Signs for tourism attractions are in deficiency throughout the Balkan peninsula. With this activity signs will be posted on major (frequent) routes and near tourist venues in the region West. It is important to note that the signs will not be only show directions for visitors as part of the infrastructure, but they are also an important communication tool about the determination of the region towards embracing tourism as economic activity.
Restoration of lookout spots (or local tourist venues) should serve the same purposes: improve tourism infrastructure, show immediate results and communicate keenness towards tourism and environment. The selection of these lookout points will depend on the selection of tourism products. In any case it will be done in close collaboration with the LAGs and the municipalities.
Forestation is the last in this sequence of infrastructure improvements. Forestation will be a response to the dangerous people’s actions of deforestation that may increasingly happen due to economic despair of the region West. Without forests and environment, tourism has little chances to take place. It is also an awareness raising effort for younger generations – that trees, forests and the environment should be preserved and well managed. The forestation activities will be organized in close cooperation with the municipalities as well as the administration in Prishtina (obtaining approvals to forest certain areas). It will be very much relied on voluntary efforts by the citizens, businesses and community groups. It will also include younger people (presumably students) as part of the awareness raising on the long term.
4.2 Share forestry and environment practices in regional context
This is the last activity of the project. It is a simple one, but with great potential for cross-border cooperation. It basically foresees meeting Macedonian institutions such as Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, Public Forestry Enterprise and the organizers of a nation-wide forestation campaign named Day of the Tree. The purpose of the meetings is to exchange ideas how forest and land management is practiced in similar circumstances.
One of the expectations is to establish cooperation with the organizer of the Day of the Tree and link that with the previously mentioned forestation activity. The Day of the Tree in Macedonia has risen as the most famous and mass national forestation action. It has the ambition to move forward and initiate replication of the action in the neighbouring countries, including Kosovo. We consider this to be excellent opportunity for cross-border cooperation related to environment and ultimately supporting also tourism in the long run.
